 I'm prepared to go live in a moment or two. Thank you. Good morning, everybody. I'd like to call the order of December 12, 2023 meeting of the Board of Supervisors. Madam Clerk, if you wouldn't mind starting us with a roll call, please. Certainly. Supervisor Koenig. Here. Cummings. Here. McPherson. Hernandez. Present. And Fred. Here, with the beginning of the moment of silence, does anybody like to dedicate today's moment of silence? And then the Pledge of Allegiance. Sorry, we'll just take a moment of silence for a second. Please join us in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, for one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Good morning, Mr. Palacio. So are there any changes to today's agenda? Yes, Chair Friend, members of the board. We have one correction on the regular agenda, number seven, and there's additional materials. There's revised memo, packet page 18, which is replaced. An updated list of proposed changes for parks, open space, and cultural services. There's also a revised attachment, A, packet page 40, which is replaced. This is a corrected fee schedule. There's also a revised attachment, B, packet page 54 through 56, which is replaced, and there's a corrected resolution. That concludes our corrections today. Thank you. Are there any board members who'd like to pull an item from consent to the regular agenda? Okay, seeing none, we'll open it up for public comment. This is an opportunity for members of the community to address us on items that are not on today's agenda, but within the purview of the board of supervisors, or that are on the consent agenda, or on the regular agenda, if you're unable to stay for the regular agenda. Good morning, welcome back. Hello, my name is Stephen Holman. I've lived in this county since 1973, and I'm here about item number 53 on the consent agenda. I'm here to ask you to please take it off the agenda and schedule a public hearing for it. It's a controversial matter. It's not a routine matter. It's a matter regarding the FEMA floodplain in Felton, and the effect that this project might have on people downstream and across the river. I've sent your board about a nine-page email with the technical reasons why the proposal is flawed, but I'll just read you one little section here. So the Code of Federal Regulation 60.3c10 states that once FEMA has mapped the floodway, then no development in the floodway can cause increases to the base flood elevation. We're talking about a project that can never happen. We're trying to make an agreement regarding maintenance of a project that's never gonna happen. We're trying to find that a CEQA has, there's no CEQA effect. When there's a major CEQA effect, the project is in a floodplain and a floodway. That's a 100 year, 1% floodplain. There are no buildings in the park where this is proposed because you can't build in a floodplain. The pump track is the same situation as a building. It will, it would be the same effect as if you built a building of the same footprint and height. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Does anybody else like to address, please feel free to line up to help. Next we'll have the process. We appreciate everybody coming this morning to speak. Good morning and welcome. Hi, thank you. Thank you all for your service and thank you all for being here and listening to us speak and hearing us. My name is Virginia Wright. I live in Felton Grove right next door to the Hovered Bridge Park. And I live in the floodway, which means the San Lorenzo River rises and it completely covers the park and our neighborhood and that leaves two to three inches of mud in its wake. And we have to dig it out. I don't think the trail stewards understand the impact that that has. It's a lot of work to clean up after one of these floods that happened, four floods this January, we're expecting another one this winter. So that's just to emphasize what the previous speaker just said, but I'm here to talk more about the public process. And I think this is really serious for the supervisors to hear that this whole process has been flawed from the beginning. Parks met with the McSanta Cruz Mountain Trail Stewards a year or so ago without public input and planned this pump track to go into Covered Bridge Park without community input. And then they gave to the trail stewards all communications and all, it was on the trail stewards website. The trail stewards sent emails when you went to the meetings to sign up, I now get fundraising emails from the trail stewards because I signed up at a public meeting. And all this time it was assumed that the trail stewards would have the MOU to build a pump track. So it's incredibly inappropriate use of public land and public time and public funds for a nonprofit with a special interest, which is building pump tracks and trails to come in at the beginning of the planning process. They should come in halfway through after the public meetings have already happened. And the reason that I would ask you not to approve the MOU with the trail stewards is not because they're doing good work. They do great work and I admire them greatly, but you need to respect the public process. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for coming this morning. Good morning and welcome back. Good morning board. My name is Archer Arce. I'm IP support services supervisor in the information services department here in the county. And I am here today to recognize a remarkable career of this individual, Stephen Krawski. Stephen has been a cheerful cornerstone of our workforce dedicating over two decades of service with direct interaction and support that has touched many within the county. On behalf of Chair Zach Friend and our entire community, it is my honor to present this proclamation to Stephen celebrating his distinguished career and invaluable contributions. The proclamation reads, whereas after 22 years of faithful and dedicated service, Stephen is retiring from his position as IT support services analyst three in ISD. And whereas Stephen has been an exemplary public servant known for his unwavering integrity, dedication, perseverance and compassion, often going above and beyond the call of duty to meet the needs of our county staff and departments. Whereas throughout his tenure, Stephen has played a crucial role in managing MDCs, supporting the maintenance of camera software and ministering FE accounts and successfully resolving a countless array of technical support and account management requests. And whereas as a true farmer at heart, Stephen has brought his duct tape and bailing wire approach to fixing things, relying on common sense and ingenuity to resolve complex technical challenges much like he would in the fields of his upbringing. And whereas Stephen's commitment to excellence, professionalism and the betterment of our services have earned Stephen the respect and admiration of his colleagues and peers. Now, therefore, Zach Friend, chair of the board, extends his deepest appreciation and gratitude to Stephen and wishes him a fulfilling and joyous retirement and hereby proclaims December 29th, 2023 as Stephen Kropsky Day in honor of his exceptional service and contributions to our workforce. I just wanna say thank you for this great recognition. It's just been an honor and privilege to serve so many people, just building friendships, relationships. Yeah, and just the team that's been, I've been around everybody. It's just been so joyous. It's like a second family to me. And not many of you know, I come from large families. I have like 147 in my own family. So it's great that I can just build these relationships just like that. And I feel the love, care and just support of you folks over the years. Thank you very much. Truly grateful and appreciative. Thank you. Morning, welcome. Good morning, supervisors. My name is Matt DeYoung. I'm a Felton resident and also the executive director of the Santa Cruz Mountain Trail Stewardship. I'm here this morning to speak in support of the items related to the Felton Pump Track proposal. Our nonprofits have been working closely with the county to develop this project and get community input. We've got a great track record of creating these community spaces with Santa Cruz County and all of our other local jurisdictions. I'm really excited to bring much needed recreation infrastructure to the San Ronsa Valley. So yeah, again, I urge you to approve that item and thank you so much for your service. Thank you. Good morning, welcome. Good morning. My name is Blair Zem. I'm a local Felton born and raised for 30 plus years. I'm here speaking for the youth and families of our community. Felton is my hometown and where my family and friends live. The lack of activities is at all time low in that area. Creating more outside activities is a goal with all involved. Why a Pump Track? People love to ride their bikes here from locals to our visitors, bicycle enthusiasts that live here who want to share two wheels with their family. Two couples that want to go ride their bikes together to the youth that need a positive, healthy activity at their local park. It's healthy and fun for all. That's why I vote yes on the Felton Pump Track. And thank you for your time. Thank you. Good morning, welcome. Thank you for waiting. I would like to express my concerns over the proposed MOU between Santa Cruz County and Santa Cruz Mountain Trail Stewardship, also known as SEMTS. Many community members have witnessed unprofessional behaviors from the parks department and most notably by the director, Jeff Gaffney. This project should have been better managed by the parks department on how it was presented to the community and whether or not we had any say in their decisions, not informing our entire community of their unilateral decision for a 10,000 square foot pump track to replace a 2,500 square foot volleyball court and covered Bridge Park in Felton has had negative impacts. Many of us have felt unsafe and were verbally attacked after speaking up after the poorly run town hall meetings paid for and organized by SEMTS who had invited their out-of-town bike enthusiasts and neglected to inform or invite the actual residents of SLV. Additionally, a prominent community member told me she was yelled at and felt bullied by director Gaffney right after leaving the county meeting because she spoke up against this pump track during the open session just two months ago. Mr. Gaffney's actions have lacked both professionalism and communication skills. He clearly favors this nonprofit that profits off building pump tracks anywhere they can regardless of whether or not it makes sense in a known floodplain. I am requesting on behalf of the community to halt any forward action, including agreeing to an MOU until the following stipulations can be created and that number one, Mr. Gaffney and his department receive anger management training as well as training on communication skills and professionalism. Number two, the parks department and SEMTS start over and provide by mail to our entire community paid for by SEMTS a clear understanding of the proposed project and offer an online survey conducted by an unbiased neutral party where we can safely voice our concerns and offer alternative options for upgrades to this space for the entire community to vote on. Please make these neat stipulations to the proposed MOU to let us know you care about the safety of our community members I want to take a mindful upgrade. Thank you. Thank you for a good morning and welcome. And welcome to the youngest members speaking in public comment. Good morning, my name is Zika Glucks. I'm from Happy Valley. And I hope this is the right time to bring this up. I didn't see it on the agenda, but I'm here to support your consideration of a resolution for a ceasefire in Gaza. I think it's past time that we made it, took a stand as a community against the excessive violence against civilians in that part of the world. Today, I think there are some other people here if you wanted to stand up to show your support if you're here for that purpose. But yeah, I've read a bit of what you guys had in mind. I support most of it and I hope you can come to a consensus on a resolution today or very soon. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning and welcome. Good morning. My name is Carolyn Cuspa. I am a Jewish American member of our community and born and raised in Santa Cruz, in Borkin, Santa Cruz. I live in District One. And yeah, I'm here for the same purpose really to support moving forward with a ceasefire as soon as possible. I do think it's high time. There have a lot of things been going on like they invoked article, I think 99 to hold, let me see. Yeah, to formally warn the Security Council that Israel's war on Gaza is now a global threat. And then I believe this morning in New York, they are holding a special meeting because Resolution 377A was invoked by Egypt and Mauritania. And that resolution says that if the UNSC is not able to discharge its primary responsibility maintaining global peace due to lack of unanimity, the UNGA can step in. It's been invoked only 13 times before and about five times it was due to conflict. It was because partially because of Israel's aggression. So I think that says a lot and given that we were the only country to veto, I think that we get, we're really lucky to have local government to be able to speak through. And I really appreciate you putting something on. So yeah, ceasefire is really important. And yeah, thank you. Thank you. Good morning and welcome back. Hello, Ludmila Boyka. I was here numerous time and I asked you for help because I still have problem with mental health department who is very difficult to have deal with and their attitude drives me crazy. And I don't understand like you five people here to help people, not to help, you know, any negative practices and neglect you here to help people. So every time I'm here, I'm asking, please help because mental health department employees do not do their job. And I hope that the new director of the behavioral health division will be open to, you know, to help people and to fix that, I don't know, that line of duty that they do not have there. They get salaries, you know, on time and their salary is raising every year and they get paid very well. But why they don't do their job and why you don't keep them accountable? You're here also to keep them accountable. Nobody kept accountable. My daughter developmentally disabled with schizoaffective disorder three years was not getting food stamps because they turned her around and sent her away and told her that she will hear from them every year they do that. And she was not able. Is it indication that she needs special help? They did to me the same thing. When I tried applying to her behalf, she said to me the same thing for 45 days. I couldn't get food stamps for her this year for 45 days when asked for three days. What is going on? Please look into that and make me in the health department, you know, work honestly and decently, you know, work with families. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning and welcome. Good morning. My name is Arthur Burns and I am a registered voter in the city of Santa Cruz calling on the council to hold a special meeting in December to put a ceasefire resolution similar to the Oakland resolution on the special meetings agenda and pass that resolution. And here's why. In 1898, Theodore Herzl, the founder of Zionism wrote in his diary, I have created a Jewish state in Palestine. The problem with this statement is that you cannot establish a Jewish state in a land full of Arabs. The plan conceived 125 years ago reduced Palestinian land from 90% in 1900 to 44% in 1947, 22% in 1967 and 10 to 15% today due largely to the addition of 700,000 Jewish settlers appropriating additional land in the West Bank. In parallel, the people of Gaza have endured 75 years of refugee status and displacement 56 years of occupation and 16 years of living in concentration camp conditions. This history demonstrates the clear intention of the Zionist movement to remove Palestinian from the land of Palestine as envisioned by Theodore Herzl, Khran Weitzman, Zeb Jematiski and a host of other Zionist leaders. These are the true motivations for the destruction of hospitals, mosques, churches, schools, 60% of the population not to mention the denial of water, food and electricity towards the goal of ethnically cleansing Palestinians using the genocidal attacks perpetrated on the people of Gaza by the IDF. Santa Cruz City must adopt a resolution demanding a ceasefire in Gaza. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. Welcome. Good morning. My name is Basil OJ. I'm a resident of District 2 honorable members of the Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors. I stand before you today to thank you for your support for an immediate ceasefire resolution in Gaza. The ongoing conflict has far-reaching consequences. It's not only over there that we have an issue, but that is actually happening here with us in our community. Within our community, the attacks in Gaza are regrettably fueling anti-Semitism and anti-Islam sentiments locally impacting the very fabric of our diverse county. Three weeks ago, I went to the hospital to visit a 21-year-old Stamford student who was a victim of a hate crime simply for wearing a t-shirt that said an Arabic Damascus. The perpetrator shouted foul language and told him to go home before running over him with his car. This happened right on campus at Stamford in the middle of the day. As a father of a son who also goes to college, I felt compelled to visit him and offer assistance. This is only one of many incidents happening on a weekly basis. By your support, we can contribute to fostering understanding tolerance and ultimately a more harmonious community. We owe it to our children and you owe it to the county as well as to your children. With your support for a ceasefire resolution in Gaza, we'll send a powerful language that our county stands for compassion, justice, and a world free from devastating impact of conflict. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. Good morning and welcome back. Good morning. My name is Becky Steinbruner. I live in the Santa Cruz Mountains. I was saddened to read the letters to the editor in this morning's sentinel that on December 8th, the Brantza-40 fire station closed. That's a travesty. And I'm really, I'm very sorry this happened in and my heart goes out to the Brantza-40 residents. They've also lost their voice representation in their fire district. They have no voice at all. Moving on. I want to address Consent Agenda Item 20 where your board is authorizing a $75 stipend for all commissioners. I'm against this for many reasons. Commissioners, commissioners volunteer to do this as public service. $75 is not only unnecessary for them. It is also putting an additional financial burden on the county, not only for the money to pay, but the administrative part of it. When you're coming to the public for a sales tax because you have no money, instead, please give the commissioners free parking passes so they don't have to run out in the middle of the meeting and move their car. I've seen that happen. Give them free parking passes or free bus pass. That will give them more incentive than a $75 check every time they attend the meeting. I also want to speak out against Measure K that half-sand sales tax for county that city voters are also going to get to weigh in on. This is ridiculous and I am appalled that you can trust the voters to trust you again. After what happened in Measure G in 2018, you said you were going to fund fire and zero. Measure G is going to fire and now you come again and ask us to fund fire with a new half-sand sales tax that's permanent. No. Measure K, no. Thank you. Good morning and thank you for waiting. Good morning. My name is Jane. I am a resident of Santa Cruz and the daughter of survivors of the NECBA of 1948. Where 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly displayed, 130 villages destroyed and 15,000 Palestinians killed. My grandparents were all expelled from their homes in Jerusalem, fled the community lives and homes that they had worked hard to create and be a part of and with only what they could carry and become refugees for the remainder of their lives. My story is not unique. Every one of us whether we are living in Palestine or in the Palestinian diaspora has a similar story. Every generation that followed has suffered as a result of the ongoing occupation by the Israeli government and the devastating events that we are seeing now in Gaza is a continuation of the 1948 NECBA at catastrophic levels. Over 20,000 are dead and missing almost 8,000 of those are children. 25,000 children have been orphaned and 90% of the population has been displaced. When we look to our community of Santa Cruz we all speak of the importance of human rights and our shared desire for collective liberation. But what happens when we as a community are called to put those values into practice and condemn harm. Collectively we can be part of how Palestinian history will be told by future generations. Do we recognize the interconnectedness of all communities and the importance of their preservation by calling on a ceasefire? Or do we continue to allow the erasure and ethnic cleansing of a people whose very lives are in active resistance? Too many people have died and the numbers are only going to keep growing. We need an immediate permanent ceasefire now. Thank you. Good morning and thank you for waiting. Good morning Thank you for opportunity to speak. My name is Sarah and I live in Santa Cruz Boulder Creek and I'm appalled at the fact that you've created the agenda item 28. This is international politics it has nothing to do with local government. You guys need and I don't like the snickers I'm hearing either. This has to you guys need to focus on homelessness, overcrowding disaster preparedness public health and international politics should not be part of our local government. We voted for you. We elected you to take care of local issues. The war is not the title of the resolution says Israel Palestine. This is not a war between Israel and Palestine. It's Israel and Hamas and Hamas is a terrorist organization and their goal is to kill Jews and they demonstrated that by the events that occurred on October 7th where they murdered over 1200 Israelis that were not armed murdering babies committing sexual crimes that are just up for and we can't even think about what had happened to those women and babies and elderly people. So I urge you if you look at the public comments that are written and submitted over the last day you'll see that there is an overwhelming response to ask you to remove that agenda item and listen to the community. It's only going to create more divisiveness and more pain especially for the Jewish community and I plead with you to remove it from the agenda. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. Welcome. Good morning. Thank you. Here are two different items. First of all, thank you for being here and being in service. Agenda item 20 I actually sit on the County Commission of Arts and I think this stipend is a great idea. I would like to say make sure that it's not restricted to any one of a certain income bracket. I think it's a good incentive for people to get more involved in the political process. So any incentive is a great idea. I do it out of the love of my heart and that's good for me but we want everyone to be involved so thank you for putting that on. In terms of agenda item I believe it's 28. A ceasefire is very important I think if we as a community can stand up and say hey we don't want this bombing to continue I think it's a really good idea. And as a father, as a community member it's very hard for me to watch the death and destruction that's happening every single day. So this is one little step that's going to hopefully make this better. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning and welcome back. Yeah good morning it's nice to be here it's December 12, 2023. I really appreciate the people's participation showing up and talking about the things they strongly believe in. Not that I agree with everything that was said here. I'm not quite sure where to begin except that I'm looking at these corporate flags. The United States was a constitutional republic for less than 13 years. What we have going on here is a complete shit show and I really do appreciate the comments that came before me I'm glad that I waited. I probably have the only initials in this room Jew. My name is James Ewing Whitman. I also have better attendance physically during public comments than any of you five gentlemen. So to witness what you guys are rubber stamping I mean what the citizens don't realize is that the Santa Cruz County the city of Santa Cruz the city of Scots Valley the city of Capitola their charter cities and counties and under those guidelines they are controlled by the city and county managers that control these supervisors and city council members like puppets. So here people are bleeding that these supervisors do something for them but they're under no obligation. So 41 seconds I'm not going to read what I have written here but I wish I could. So again looking at the minutes and how this is really just a joke when you look at how the city of Santa Cruz operates citizens individuals can pull items off the consent agenda and talk on them for three minutes. I know I've done that several times but my comments have to do with the minutes and on page 112 there's just the title of minutes there's nothing that has been said I think 20 people spoke before me and I wonder what is going to be recorded in the minutes because it's the clerks that have the most important job in here they are the historians thank you. Thank you good morning and welcome. Good morning members of the board my name is Bill Rence I'm a registered voter in the city of Santa Cruz and I'm here to support the resolution demanding a ceasefire in Israel Gaza this is a matter of important local concern. My taxpayer dollars your taxpayer dollars all of our taxpayer dollars are paying to fund a slaughter of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza and we're paying for it we are buying the weapons that are doing all that and all of the money that goes into supporting this war could be much better used reinvested in local matters in this country in immigration problems in this country in homeless problems in this country all of that money that could have been spent there is now being spent to kill people in that unfortunate country and so I hope you will keep this item on your agenda and on your consent agenda and pass it as you would regularly do thank you. Good morning thank you for waiting. Hi my name is Sharon McCorkle and I am from the resident of Boulder Creek voting in this county I'm here to oppose the amendment about the proposal for the ceasefire resolution primarily I don't really think it's our business as a local government to take stands on complex issues international issues when we've got so much to do here my vote for Supervisor goes to people that are going to govern not to people that are going to make proclamations and so that would be my first objection also as a member of the Jewish community I've seen how these kinds of proclamations tend to generalize into anti-Semitism and people start to attack our community so I don't feel that this is the appropriate forum for that kind of resolution thank you. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning my name is Tom Fredericks I live at 258 Circle Drive in Felton and I'm here to comment on the MOU that gives the Mountain Bike Association the green light to build a pump track in Covered Bridge Park I live a block away from Covered Bridge Park I cross through it every day I walk my dog in it I cross through it to go to Safeway across Graham Hill Road I cross over the bridge to go to Wild Roots grocery store in downtown Felton that park is the center of civic life in Felton and it's a very small park the MOU gives your giving permission by approving that MOU to make a big change in this park the current volleyball court measures 2400 square feet the footprint of the new pump track will be at least four times that this is a small park last Sunday there was Kinsignera photography on the bridge the Kinsignera group moved into the park land into the grassland and you're trying to find the perfect spot for the late winter evening light the week before on the bridge was a wedding and then there's countless birthday parties in the park and then most movingly the grassland which will then become a pump track was used several weeks ago while I was there for the last rites of the dog the family brought the park put the dog down and former circle of grief around it this is the kind of park it is and you're changing it into a pump track park good morning and welcome good morning gentlemen supervisors my name is Geoffrey Smedberg I wanted to show you a poster that I was recently given I'm very honored to share this poster um that was um Sherry Conable originally made this poster I'm going to show the audience as well I am also the Executive Vice President of the Monterey Bay Central Labor Council which last week passed a resolution calling for ceasefire in Israel and Gaza and we're very pleased that you have on your agenda today a resolution like that um unfortunately not everyone in the world can make the distinction between Jews and the Israeli government and what's happening in the Middle East right now is there's a lot of animosity building against the Israeli government and that's that flows over into animosity against Jews and so I think the actions of the Israeli government right now are really harmful for Israelis for Jewish Israelis and consequently for Jews all around the world I have including my friends and family who are Jewish thank you we really support your resolution thank you good morning morning and welcome morning I'm here to speak to action item number 11 is how we declare a non-responsible bitter here in Santa Cruz my name is Casey Vanden Heul I'm the president of the construction building trades in Monterey County and I also represent the members of the sheet metal workers local 104 here in this county as we've shown to demonstrate the misclassification and wage theft that are happening currently in this county as well as work stoppage of contractors not paying their subcontractors on time the way we're going to be able to do this three pre-apprentice classes going on one here in the Santa Cruz County of Education one in Watsonville one currently at the Monterey Santa Cruz Building Trades Council they teach these kids soft construction skills as well as OSHA first aid and an introduction to the many many different construction unions now how are you going to supply jobs to those pre-apprentices to get into state certified apprenticeships we're going to do that through project labor agreements with a dedication of local hire non-misclassification of workers and less wage theft unable to take cars off the road and residents here work locally we're going to empower the community a road to the state certified apprenticeship programs into high skilled paying careers and into retirements that provide this county with a livable wage the way we're going to be able to prosper so please support this action item and let's get some project labor agreements rolling thank you good morning welcome hello hello my name is Katherine Gunderson I'm a retired public school teacher in this county I've lived here in this county since March 1973 I'm here because many years ago I I started to notice that any reporting from Israel Palestine was told to us Americans by the media from an Israeli source there was no Palestinian story there and so I started really paying attention and I finally found that told me what was really going on and it was KPFA listener supported radio from Berkeley who is 75 years that is only supported by people anyway I know that the majority of US citizens really are upset like I am about the ethnic cleansing you have to call it in Palestinian indigenous Palestinian land I heard yesterday on the radio that Egypt Israel was promising Egypt some unbelievable amount of money to accept as many as possible Palestinians going from the north this morning a hospital was bombed that was women waiting to have babies or had had babies recently they were all killed only 11 of the 30 something hospitals from Gaza are still functioning at all it's really a horrible situation thank you very much good morning my name is Teresa Bennings and I grew up here in Santa Cruz I live on the west side of Santa Cruz and as a citizen of this country the United States and our world I stand up against the mass starvation and killing of citizens and on March 20th of 2022 the board of supervisors passed a foreign policy resolution standing with Ukraine I ask for you guys to stand up with our community and stand up against the mass genocide of civilians so that we can recenter this war against a terrorist group and not against the mass killing of children and mothers and fathers I do not agree with the mass targeting of also oh my god people that report the news I do not see this as simply a conflict between Israel and Hamas when so many Palestinian people have been murdered I do stand very firmly against any form of anti-Semitism I have both a friend who has Ukrainian background and many Israeli friends who stand up against this mass killing of Palestinians and I ask that our community that I've grown up in that I believe stands for peace I ask you to speak up with our voice and do the same thank you is there anybody else in chambers that would like to address us this will be your last call for chambers before we move online morning and welcome hi thank you all for being here I'm a local mother and local Jew I have a baby on the way I just want to say that I am a Jewish person that is pro ceasefire I'm local um there's been enough innocent lives lost and I hope you will carry out what you have put on the ballot and thank you for doing so thank you good morning good morning board members thank you my name is Lisa Navarra I'm a constituent in Live Oak I'm here in Santa Cruz and I'm also speaking on behalf of the ceasefire resolution as a mental health professional seeing what is happening I mean the impact obviously on our family Palestinians and Jewish people but also here locally the impact of witnessing the horrors that are happening there's a huge impact and trauma and why would we continue that to have an impact and so I'm calling on each of you to like why would we keep going why more children why more families um and we can actually do something and I'm trusting you all to speak on behalf of the 66% of Americans and more who do support a ceasefire thank you thank you is there anybody else in chambers okay we'll close public comment and chambers we'll turn it up online call in user one your microphones now available well I wonder how much of the weaponry that you well I am opposed to U.S. military slaughtering people in other countries like the Palestinians with our fair money and I'm against our money going for satellites and rockets etc I'm going to quote briefly from FreeTheSky.org December 15th this Friday the California Coastal Commission meets in Santa Cruz to consider two Vandenberg rocket launch projects the public can submit comments and attend FreeTheSky.org and a little background the Coastal Commission I think you're on that supervisor comments maybe you could elaborate on this meeting have some jurisdiction over federal projects in the coastal zone but it has limited itself by not considering the nature and scope of damage from these rocket launches and satellites to the coastal region the atmosphere air, water and land and coastal resources and by not taking into account the extensive environmental damage by both the Air Force over decades and now SpaceX that includes toxic amenization ozone layer damage and climate change excuse me I'll also refer you to cellphonetaskforce.org newsletter titled SpaceX to begin Worldwide Viviana your microphone is now available Hello my name is Viviana and I'm living here already seven years in Santa Cruz mountains I'm a Jewish Israeli proud and all what people they're talking is really unbelievable I think you need to deal with what's happening here and not in Israel and if you're standing with God like you said in the beginning we are the people of God and what's happening it's historically unbelievable you're going against Jewish people you see what's happening and you're closing your eyes what you need to ask for is how much they'll be using the people to defend themselves they are like rats hiding and protecting themselves with human beings we try to protect ourselves you need to stand with us not with those present people they're murdering thank you for listening and stop stop with this brutal game that wants to play with our life Jewish people for all our world thank you Tim your microphone is now available thank you so much yes my name is Tim Delaney I live in Santa Cruz county near Summit Store and I've been in your meetings a number of times to speak on all sorts of topics I do not support this resolution here calling for a ceasefire and my reasoning is it's look folks this is Hamas they started it they can unconditionally surrender and the whole issue here is I really don't like how the Arab world is behaving we all know about Sudan and Darfur and those were black and also were Islamic and the Arabs that were being funded by China with weapons from China and that oil deal for Steve Jobs and Silicon Valley here were all happy to go in there on camel, horseback and murder all those black people and so they brutalized them as like 400,000 to 600,000 maybe a million of them died and it's still happening today and President Obama even sat down with Steve Jobs a Palestinian and a black man and it's an uncomfortable discussion to try to get something to happen here to change the supply chain and to get China to stop giving weapons to Sudan and to stop all this the Arab world is behaving not much different than southern whites at the end of the civil war they're going to kill in the entire world unless we back Israel so I am 100% not supportive of this ceasefire they need to go in there and clean them out that's the only thing that I can think of it's unfortunate I don't like to see people die but you know that's how it is anyways thank you very much and you folks have a fine day thank you Joy, your microphone is now available Hi, my name is Joy Shendeldecker I wanted to be with you all in chambers today but I'm home sick with the cold so I really appreciate the continuation of the being able to zoom in I want to just note that like so many other people I'm in support of a ceasefire I think this is really basic without getting into all of the sort of arguing over the history and the facts as different people see them and interpret them we need a ceasefire this is a basic humanitarian intervention that yes has to do with our local tax dollars being spent on inhumane military interventions instead of coming back into our communities for desperately needed staffing and wages for public health and mental health disability services, provisions so yes please thank you for putting this on the agenda I support passing it this is also democracy in action and having this conversation publicly and passing a ceasefire resolution that we feed up through our sort of hierarchical political process that's what you're here for, that's what our city council members are here for, that's what our board of supervisors are here for so thank you for doing that I also just want to very quickly say thank you for putting a project labor agreement or community workforce agreement on the agenda I would like that to be as strong as possible for community workforce agreement that's really inclusive and expansive thank you very much thank you Stacey your microphone is now available Hi my name is DC Garcia and I live in the San Lorenzo Valley and the Fifth District I also work in human rights and community engagement I'm calling to express support for the county ceasefire resolution to end the ongoing genocide of Palestinian civilians now is a moral failure and a humanitarian disaster over 18,000 people have been killed by Israel with American weapons funded by our hard-earned US tax dollars in addition to calling for an immediate permanent ceasefire we need to respect human rights and international humanitarian law by all parties involved and provisions without restrictions of humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza and although I applaud you all for putting forward this resolution I would like you to consult with Palestinian Americans who are living in our community and who are currently experiencing a rise in Islamophobia and hate speech some of which we just experienced in these public comments they have also expressed concerns about the way the statement is written and lack of community involvement in the process so I urge you to swiftly consult Palestinian community members directly impacted to get their input the Oakland resolution is a great example of the action that involved community input thanks for listening to our call for a ceasefire and call to action for elected officials to take action, thank you thank you additional speakers yes Jenny, your microphone is now available thank you my name is Jennifer Lynn Kelly and I'm here as a resident of Aptos and the Santa Cruz community member a scholar of Palestine and a mother I'm a professor at UC Santa Cruz in the departments of feminist studies and critical race and ethnic studies and both my scholarship and my teaching center Palestine and Palestinian studies I'm one of two moms to our two year old daughter who has come with us to every action over the past two months a child marching for other children in a world that shouldn't necessitate that I'm here to support a research based and historically accurate city council resolution for a ceasefire that stands unequivocally against colonial state violence and state sanction murder of a besieged population as we speak Israeli bombs are continuing to rain down on Gaza murdering over 23,000 Palestinians including over 9,000 children a body count that grows every day Israeli airstrikes have decimated hospitals and universities targeted first responders and bakeries, murder journalists and professors eradicated entire families leveled neighborhoods and demolished safe routes on which Palestinians were told to flee for their lives the genocidal attack on Gaza has displaced 1.9 million Palestinians and destroyed over 42% of the homes in Gaza it has been accompanied by the denial of food water medicine electricity and telecommunications infrastructure 66% of constituents in the US are like me saying no and demanding a permanent and total ceasefire with respect for the organizing many of you are already doing toward a ceasefire and the belief that local ceasefire resolutions will pressure federal and state actors to act I'm asking city council to hold a special meeting in December to actually use Oakland ceasefire resolution model it names genocide we were witnessing and demands that it stop the accident resolution also needs to be amended in its clear definitions this is a genocide not a war it is settler colonialism and military occupation not a conflict in Palestinians are teaching life every day as they're being subjected to death the least we can do is amplify their pedagogy and demand a ceasefire to save their lives Noy your microphone is now available Hello thank you everyone my name is Noy I live in Santa Cruz mountains I'm Jewish, I'm Israeli and I'm probably one of the only people over here who actually served in the Israeli defense force I've been in Gaza, I've been in Beirut I've been in Syria I've seen these terror organizations in my eyes I've seen what they're doing to the local population I see what they're doing to the people in Gaza how they hide behind hospitals how they shoot missiles from schools I've seen it in my eyes and this is exactly what they're trying to do to push people a county from California who has no idea what actually is happening over there and just read the titles of the news and being fed by propaganda or by misinformation political organizations and people again Israel doing things against the people in Gaza the conflict over there is not between Israel and all everything they can to kill their own people to make sure that people stay miserable to allow them to kill Jews this is their mission and this is what they're saying Hamas organization is a terror organization by the United States not by Israel, by United States that's the definition of Hamas Hamas is ISIS the Israel defense force is doing everything they can to keep the people safe who lives in Gaza but they still need to kill and defeat this organization there was a ceasefire on October 6 and the people who actually stopped that ceasefire is Hamas and this county needs to mainly stay out especially in the details of the facts what is actually happening there thank you hey I mean if nothing else this community can show respect for each other it's not that difficult the point of order is that if you're going to continue to disturb the meeting then I'm going to have to ask for you to leave this is your warning this is your warning for disturbing the meeting Mr. Ewing Whitman just show respect for your fellow community members people show respect for the things that you say listen this has been a respectful meeting and a very challenging issue and I think that's what makes Santa Cruz County a special place so just honor that please Rachel your microphone is now available thank you greetings honorable elected officials my name is Rachel Kippen I'm a resident of Capitola I've lived throughout Santa Cruz County for less over decade over 10 years I believe that you are all good people who've chosen to represent your community and I thank you for truly considering this message I recognize that this issue is really divisive I thank you for agendizing this resolution and I urge you to call for a ceasefire in Gaza calling for a ceasefire in Gaza does not equate to supporting Hamas it does not make you an anti-Semite calling for a ceasefire reminds us that we are human and that nothing will be achieved and no lasting peace will be attained by obliterating apartment blocks of innocent civilians by dismembering bodies and dismembering families by creating orphans by inflicting generational trauma on an entire population and by viewing tens of thousands of Palestinian deaths that's acceptable collateral damage these deaths cannot be considered self-defense it is great disrespect to the thousands that have lost their lives we must do everything within our power to urge the Biden administration to stop bolstering this massacre I've heard folks say that this isn't our business to weigh in on it is you are our connection to the federal government I thank you for taking this issue on and I believe it is truly important I do echo the sentiment of others that the Oakland the city of Oakland ceasefire resolution is a very strong resolution stopping a ceasefire resolution just period full stop thank you again for listening to my comment and for your good work thank you Corey your microphone is now available Corey is a writer at star six to mute or unmute yourself oh sorry about that Corey asked for here for Felton resident I just wanted to voice my support for the Felton Pumtrak project young people in San Lorenzo Valley really need more positive outlets especially considering that the nearest Pumtrak, Sky Park and Scots Valley is due to be demolished to make room for their town center project and the organization behind this Santa Cruz mountains trail stewardship has a decades long track record of partnerships with all of the local land managers including Santa Cruz County parks I trust that they'll do a good job balancing the interests of all stakeholders while providing a desirable new park feature that won't cost the taxpayers anything because they're going to raise the money for this that's all thank you thank you Nicole your microphone is now available Nicole oh hi hi I'm Nicole I am a resident of Watsonville I wanted to start off by saying that Nelson Mandela someone every single one of us has taught about said we know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians and the United Nations international human rights watch and bit synium which is an Israeli organization of all called Israel and apartheid state former speaker of Israeli parliament Avron Berg and over 1500 academics most of them who word Israeli wrote a letter in August before October 7th calling Israel and apartheid state to say that signing up for Palestinians and Palestinian rights is anti-semitic goes against every single one of our values as Americans and creates for our students our families Palestinians Arabs Muslims and our communities as a whole over 18,000 Palestinians have died in Leziz since October 7th and over 10,000 of those people have been children and over 50,000 people have been injured and over 90% of people have been displaced more children have died in Israel's attack on Leziz since October 7th and the total number of children killed in conflicts all around the world since 2019 according to the United Nations more UN officials have been killed since October 7th since any time in the organization's history these are deaths because of Israel because of Israeli apartheid because of Israeli genocide Israel is a terrorist state and anyone that supports Israel should be considered as terrorist standing up for Palestinian rights is standing up for human rights we should be doing that every single day and to not stand up for Palestinian rights is to not believe that all people that are standing up for Israel are complicit in our current system and they are people that are ruining the world if nothing else every single American should stand up for Palestinians because our taxpayer money is going to military aid in Israel and has been since 1960 so we are all part of the problem and all should be working to solve it thank you how many additional speakers do we have? currently currently there are two speakers I'll make this a final call those will be the last two speakers so we can move on normally allocate about 45 minutes but I wanted to make sure the people have an opportunity to speak Kayla your microphone is now available awesome thank you good morning my name is Kayla Kumar I live in the city of Santa Cruz and I want to thank you all for putting a ceasefire resolution on your agenda today I actually I was in a meeting and wasn't planning on being here but I heard that there were some comments that were really Islamophobic that were shared at the meeting today and I just wanted to hop on and state very clearly from my heart to Palestinians and Muslims and Arabs that might be listening in on this meeting or in the meeting today that I stand with you I'm sorry that you had to hear that those comments that are wrong and I also pray for the healing for the people who said them so that hate can no longer live so obviously in this situation I like many support the Oakland resolution and hope that more jurisdictions locally will adopt it is clear to me and countless international NGOs and governmental jurisdictions that this is a genocide it is very clearly a genocide it must stop we must do everything possible to leverage our influence to make it stop and just a point to how important it is at the local level to do this many changes have come from the ground up local demonstrations get to local governments get to state governments to federal governments this is part of how our system is developed it's important it matters and I thank you all for doing what you can to be a part of that process thank you thank you and for our final speaker for public comment yes our final speaker mark your microphone is now available mark your microphone should be available as a reminder at star six to meter unmute yourself as needed here's they're not able to connect okay we'll close public comment bring it back to the board for consideration the consent agenda we'll start with supervisor Hernandez do you have any comments on the consent agenda a few comments I guess 20 to 946 and 53 and I'll go in reverse order in terms of the pump track now I believe that we always got to provide young people with more activities and more active options as well we had the opportunity to do a pump track in in Watsonville and I remember prior to having the pump track we had a metal skatepark and we were sitting one time I went to go visit the skatepark to go talk to some of the young people there and there's a group that waited and they weren't really riding their bikes or anything but they're just waiting around and about six of them piled up into a little car and asked them where they were going and they said they were going to a BMX track out in Scott's valley and so that's when we decided to move forward with a pump track in Watsonville that very day they didn't state they wanted something they just I just saw that they were actually driving to Scott's valley but immediately after they built that track I was really happy to see an entire family of kids from like 11 to about 6 the youngest one maybe 5 the youngest one was on a little bike at night without any pedals and they're all there at our pump track and I asked them where they're from and they're from Scott's valley I was really happy to see that they're enjoying not the best food they had this 7-eleven pizza and big gulps but I wish they would have done that better places but that's what they were having but I think it really is a good thing to see the only thing I'd ask for is in the future is a better bike and pedestrian around the vicinity and that's something we had to do around Ramsey park in 29 I want to thank again I always want to thank all my commissioners and I want to thank Stephen George and Violet Lucas for their continued service on the cemetery district and on item 46 we have the behavioral health youth crisis project in collaboration with the Watson community hospital I want to thank all the staff and all the HSA and the behavioral health staff and of course Watsonville community hospital and the district for that work it's much needed and a blessing to our county and to our community and item number 28 I think that you know it's always a tough issue you know and say I'm Mexican-American myself and I don't consider myself too religious if anything I'd consider myself a lazy boy couch Catholic but I did read that you know the church and the Vatican and the Pope did declare a ceasefire resolution and you know when I read headlines about collateral damage and you know the numbers that's occurring you know I heard 7000 I heard 9000 children right now but even if it's 7000 the lower number it's still a tremendous amount and I have to say that collateral damage is more than just you know civilian casualties it's really you know mothers, children families and this is non-combatant right because they're not talking about I'm also talking about civilian casualties and you know while it is also an international issue I think that there's three things that I do want to say we have set precedent and this board in March did do a resolution on Ukraine and you know if we could call to end a war in Ukraine we could do the same to call a ceasefire in Palestine to move you know the other thing is the more the conflict continues and I think someone stated it too or mentioned something about the students in Stanford but also in Burlington there are some students but the more the conflict continues Islamophobia and anti-semitism will grow here so I think that it's the best step to call for a ceasefire you know another way to clarify what a ceasefire means it's simply peace and I mean who's really against peace I believe that the advocates here today the advocates of the ceasefire are simply asking for peace and I think that's really what Santa Cruz is about so that's my comments thank you supervisor Cummings thank you chair and I just want to thank all the people who came here and spoke today and were able to amplify your voice so that we could hear where a community stands and where a community is coming from and to do so also in a way that's respectful it's really important that as a community we can we're able to have difficult conversations and that we're able to you know express our support for opposition to whether it's resolutions or projects but that we're all going to try to hear each other out and I'm sorry that my voice is gone so I hope you can all hear me as best possible the first thing I did want to say is as a California coastal commissioner the commission will be meeting here in Santa Cruz Wednesday Thursday Friday of this week and our meetings start at 9 a.m. and so I would encourage you all to visit the coastal commissions website because there are a number of items that are important to our community in case you want to weigh in but you do need to sign up if you want to speak during oral communications. Moving on to our agenda I want to thank item number 14 which with November 14 minutes I want to just thank staff for the corrections there I think they better reflect the motion that was made item number 20 I also want to thank staff on their work on this related to commissioners stipends one of the things we've been having a lot of conversations about is increasing equity and for lower income people to be able to participate in our local government having some kind of financial just a small stipend for them attending meetings can really help them if they need to get child care or if they need to offset the cost of not being able to work to be able to attend those meetings and so I just want to thank the staff for working on moving that forward and let's continue to monitor to see how that goes as it relates to the ceasefire I just wanted to say that this is an item that I put on the agenda and I just want to give a little back history to it which is that over the course of the last month or so we've been receiving letters from the community asking us to put on a ceasefire for consideration we've probably got hundreds if not maybe close to a thousand letters from the community asking for this and I think that it's important as local government we are responding to our community when they're asking us to do something I looked at numerous resolutions and took numerous resolutions into consideration but when we move forward with what's before us it really is asking for peace it's really asking for the fact that we see every day that there are hundreds of children and families and innocent people that are getting killed in this conflict when we're hearing that because of lack of water many people many more people die from disease than the actual bombing that's taking place this is a humanitarian crisis that we need to figure out how we can resolve in the best way possible while also defending the people who are Jewish and Israeli and those who are Palestinian we need to figure out how we can come together and get our federal officials and other countries involved to help resolve this conflict that's what this is rooted in and I know that many people in this community and as we're moving to the holiday season I think it's appropriate that we express our intent to try to see a peaceful way forward and so that's really the intent behind this it's not to pick a side one or the other it's really to advocate for having this conflict and in a way that will result in people being able to live their lives and stop seeing so much loss in what is a growing humanitarian crisis and so that's all I have to say about that but just wanted to give some comments on that item item number 41 which is the Sheriff's Correction Officer hiring I do want to thank staff this is an item where there's incentive pay to help deal with some of the vacancies that we have related to the Sheriff's Department and so I guess I'd ask as part of the direction is that during the budget hearing process we get a report back on how that recruitment has been going and how the incentive pay has been increasing our ability to build those vacancies I also will follow up with staff but I'd also like to see just as a new supervisor I'm not aware but if there's any way that we can have incentive pay for retention of workers I think that's something we may also want to consider obviously they're going to be financial implications but you know we talk about incentivizing hiring people but what kind of incentives can we put in place to retain workers here because losing workers to other communities is a big deal but if we can do something to help retain them and some kind of financial incentive for those who are here for 5 years 10 years 15 years I think that would be a good way to help us you know deal with some of these staffing issues yeah item number 46 the Watsonville temporary youth crisis program again I want to thank staff for their work on this to help us have a facility where kids experiencing mental health issues can go and receive treatment but in addition to the direction I'd also like to see if we could add direction that we send letters to the local jurisdictions the county office of bed and the school districts informing them of this action I know that there's been some comments we've received from some of the other cities needing to do more around this and I just think this is a good educational opportunity to let the other jurisdictions know what we're now doing for children in our community and as it relates to the Pelton Plum Track I know the change in our community is really difficult but as someone who grew up in a neighborhood where we saw the loss of public amenities for children we saw basketball hoops getting taken down we saw two of our bowling alleys closed and lack of opportunities for youth that were healthy outdoor activities a lot of kids in the community started getting into very unhealthy and unsafe activities and I think that to the extent that we could provide youth in our community with more opportunities to be in environments where they're visible where they have access to public safety if they get hurt these are things that we can do to help provide youth with activities that are healthy in our community and so I'm supportive of the Pelton Track although I know that there's a lot of people who are opposed to change this is something that I think we could greatly benefit from and those are all my comments on the consent agenda we're coming to Vasant McPherson Thank you Mr. Chair there's several items I want to address item number 18 on the legislative agenda that I want to thank all the staff and the members of the board who contributed to setting these priorities for the legislature and the state and national level we know that many of these issues require a great deal of work and advocacy over a number of years and sometimes decades so I do appreciate already getting our voices to the state government and feds I'd like to highlight four items in particular the Boulder Creek Sanitation work the FEMA reimbursement efforts to be discussed later today the property tax reapportionment and also the elimination of unfunded mandates by the state which is going to be a critical factor that we have coming up I've mentioned this before I'll address you with the state having a projected $8 billion deficit over this year and next there's a tendency to just say let's pass this legislation and let the local governments pay for it all of these are taking or will take a profound amount of effort for our legislators and I want to appreciate both the state and federal legislative delegations for their partnership in addressing these needs item 28 the seats fire in the Middle East I'm going to vote no on this item out of a serious concern of our board meeting taking a particular stand of what's initially really an international issue we have a responsibility to take issues our positions on issues that do something with the items we have control over and lastly I'll say sincerely just as I said a couple weeks ago or a week ago let's all pray for peace and a resolution of conflicts all over the world and hope that we see the day when that becomes a reality this is a very very troubling matter we all know that on item 34 the OR3 grant application I want to thank you to the OR3 for pursuing this grant it's a big reason why we created this office to help the county address preventative measures not just preparedness and responsiveness the hazard mitigation work funded by this grant will help Spitter understand and address the aspects of our county that make us prone to disasters such as wildfire in fact in the new FEMA rankings as you may have read about recently Santa Cruz County have three more than 3,000 counties in this nation was ranked the 15th highest landslide risk in the nation and whatever we can do to work to mitigate this and other challenges is critical thank heavens we missed the storm that just hit the northern United States and Oregon and Washington but we don't know what's coming in the near future on item 35 I want to thank our staff for the ongoing work on the issue known this is the Boulder Creek or excuse me big basin water district I know we are in contact with the receiver for the big basin water company and on an ongoing basis and they're working with the state offices to see how we can partner on the support but we are considering this deferral at this point on a report back to the board is essentially for another month I would also like to see us respond more formally now that we have been a receipt of this request since November so I would like to add if we could give some additional direction to this item number 35 to have the staff to send a letter to big basin water the big basin water receiver acknowledging the loan request and providing an update on county's financial situation and letting them know we are still looking into what options we may have to providing that support on item 53 the Felton pump track is in my district I want to thank our parks department staff for working on this proposal as well as the Santa Cruz mountain trail stewardship team who are parks leaders invited to be part of this project given the expertise on building these pump tracks this is a topic that has garnered a lot of attention in my district and particularly Felton both in favor and opposed but let me be clear that we have heard all of these viewpoints and we have responded to many questions over the course of three public meetings that we've had and now that we've arrived at a point where I think we need to move forward I'm going to be supporting this project I've been vetted in our parks department our county council and planning department the final design was also reviewed by our planning team including our hydrologist related to the floodplain we've had three public meetings the parks department and run by the parks commission the pump tracks really have been successful features in other parts of the county as been mentioned by some of my colleagues including two in Watsonville several in Santa Cruz and others in Live Oak and Aptos they're well established and well used amenities and I think it's going to be a real service I think Felton would benefit from situating this kind of popular recreation spot for families in our beautiful covered bridge park especially in a way that does not distract from the historic bridge or establish community green space for festivals and other events again I want to thank everyone in the community who provided their input but I think this will be a real good asset to especially our young community and the Santa Rosa Valley and lastly the item number 66 the CSA 9C I'm very pleased that's County Service Area 9C pleased to see that the county's community infrastructure and development department was able to reach an agreement with the city of Scotts Valley we're writing a shared formula for sharing CSA 9A funds Scotts Valley property owners have been paying into the CSA 9C fund for many years and initially received solid waste services from the county for their contributions the city has been providing those services directly to its constituents for some time and this new agreement is an acknowledgement that more fair revenue sharing formula was needed and it's going to be established and I was pleased that my office was able to take part in getting the city of Scotts Valley to talk with our county representatives to make this a reality thank you I'll briefly serve other comments I'm just going to yeah I did just want to make Supervisor Hernandez just pointed out to me that I didn't say the location of the Coal's commission meeting but it'll be at the dream end for those who are interested and then I did want to just highlight on number 28 but not only is this a ceasefire agreement but it also asks for the return of all hostages by both sides and I think that that has not been really emphasized that this is not just talking about a ceasefire it's also talking about releasing the hostages to both countries so I just wanted to make sure folks were clear on that as part of this resolution as well thank you Supervisor Koenig thank you Chair on item 18 the 2024 legislative priorities I want to thank the CAO and staff I think this does a really good job of crystallizing the large challenges our county faces and that we need help from our state and federal legislators to address I would certainly encourage all those folks candidates for County Supervisor this coming year to read through this list of legislative priorities because I think it really demonstrates the work we have cut out for us on item 27 the report from the Health Services Agency Recruitment and Retention Committee about Hiring Mental Health Client Workers I want to thank the Human Services Agency and Personnel Department for this great report encouraged by the implementation of automated testing, rationale interviewing and other improvements in the hiring process that are allowing us to bring folks on board faster and I look forward to the salary study in March of next year on item 46 the interim behavioral health youth crisis diversion project at the emergency department at Watsonville Community Hospital I also want to thank HSA staff and particular behavioral health for getting this program set up I've heard a lot over the last year about the challenges with coming from mental health crises being in the hallways in the emergency room in Dominican Hospital and just not having adequate facilities there for them and of course we are moving towards a really fantastic solution to this which is the Children's Crisis Stabilization Center next to the Sheriff's Center where we'll actually have sufficient beds for our community but in the interim we do need this solution and I just want to recognize behavioral health staff taking the time to set up this interim solution even at the same time as we're planning a permanent solution and I also want to thank Dominican Hospital for their partnership with this and helping to fund the interim solution on item 49 we're approving the crisis now model program and an application to mental health services activation funds I also want to thank the behavioral health department for this item we've already reviewed this item as a board and approved it and we're being asked to do so again it helped to clarify for me that of the over $5 million that will be spent on this program over the coming years the majority of it is going to staff and that really only about 10% less even is going to sort of the strategic plan portion of it and that the majority is going to where it's county staff salaries and benefits and hiring another 12 people who provide support for dispatch and mobile crisis services as I said before this is something that I know our community desperately needs and has wanted for a long time and I'm really excited to see this program moving forward finally on item 28 the resolution in support of a permanent ceasefire in the war between Israel and Palestine I certainly agree with many of the comments made today that we need compassion justice peace there's interconnectedness between all communities on the planet and of course I'm incredibly saddened by the many images of people killed and may be coming out of this war however as a county supervisor it's my job to listen to all sides and not make decisions about things that don't have total clarity and what I don't have clarity on is how a ceasefire would actually be operationalized as has been said this is a war not between Palestine and Israel but between Hamas and Israel and if we if we ask for a ceasefire are we going to have peace enforcers are we going to are we asking for the interjection of yet more bombs in order to keep the peace I just don't know how we can ask for this when clearly one side is dedicated to the destruction of the other and will not listen to ceasefire no matter what I think moreover what is clear is that if our county government takes a stand one way or another on this issue it will drive division in our community over something that ultimately we don't have a lot of control over and I don't think we can see our county government taking a side on this issue we want compassion do we need compassion yes I encourage but I think if we want to prevent the collateral damage here in our own community the right thing to do is it's not try to suppose what the right answer is to be kind to one another right here in this room within this community send your resources and donations to those impacted by this war so I'm going to be voting now on the resolution thank you thank you Supervisor Koenig I'll make comments on two items item 46 I'd like to echo my colleagues appreciation I don't think you can overstate the amount of work that was put into this behind the scenes to help with this interim behavioral health use crisis diversion project at Watsonville community hospital I'm it's going to serve we estimate at least 300 youth in our community over the next year and a half or so youth that in particular coming out of the pandemic are really struggling and needing resources and this provides not just a resource but it also provides it in a location where there's been an under investment historically in these kinds of resources so I hope that this I appreciate my colleagues therefore additional direction on this to help amplify this information to other neighboring communities and I hope that the broader community takes note in how these investments are happening throughout our community in advance of the more permanent solution that will open in 2025 and in regards to item 28 I do appreciate supervisor Cummings taking the extra time to describe the context by which he was bringing it forward and I don't in any way shape or form of bringing this item forward my challenge here is that no matter what the intention is it's really impossible to take a finite position on this without alienating and dividing a significant portion of our community it is true that we received hundreds of emails in support of such a resolution those emails also a number of them not all but a number of them included language that was viewed as very hateful hurtful and inflammatory by certain members of our community and to me that's I don't think that was the intent but it that goes to show the complexity issue and the complexity with taking a finite position on something like this and they were bored that prides ourself on inclusivity and tolerance and yet is being asked to take a position that clearly there's members in our community would view as hurtful and alienates and divides which is not the ethos and the position of our community it's literally not what our county seal says right there without prejudice and I think that what we need to do in good conscience is work on efforts that aren't performative but efforts that when performative can also alienate or even more problematic there are many I took the time and did some outreach over the weekend when this item presented and asked members of the community how they would perceive this irrespective of the language and I think that my colleague did a very good job trying to make the language as benign as possible but because of the way that this is perceived internationally and nationally right now there's really no way to craft something that isn't viewed as taking a side on the issue that isn't viewed as dividing on the issue and I don't think that that is the goal it wasn't the goal of most of the speakers that spoke today there were speakers who did in my opinion cross the line under tones of Islamophobia and there were speakers who crossed the line on some of their comments on Israel that would be viewed as anti-Semitic and we need to check our language and be careful in the bias of our language and in particular when the county is going to take an official stance on something we need to be abundantly clear that we're not doing something that would alienate or divide members of our community so for that reason I can't support item 28 either we'll move now toward a motion we have a request for additional direction on 26 35 and we have recorded no votes on item 28 is there a motion for the recommended actions with the additional direction I'll move to the second so we have a motion from Supervisor Cummings and a second from Supervisor Hernandez with the additional direction on those three items and Madam Clerk with the understanding of the three recorded no votes on item 28 if we could have a roll call vote please Chair if I may can I just receive some clarification on the additional direction on item 46 absolutely if I could only remember who it was that made the request for 26 additional direction I think it might have been Supervisor McPherson actually actually it was you it was on the Supervisor Cummings it was on the the probation officers on the report my mistake I wrote down the wrong number I apologize so it was on item 41 did you take down a note on that Madam Clerk and if not I'll have Supervisor Cummings state it was on a pay what I don't say I chair I believe this was our Supervisor Cummings it pleased the recommended action here or additional direction was to look at retention bonuses if I may I think that the action was to receive an update during the budget on how we're closing the gap with the vacancies and then I just mentioned wanting to follow up with County staff on the potential for retention I just wanted to make that public okay so it's not an actual I apologize so the direction would just be during budget to bring back information on how close we are to closing the gap for the vacancies with this is an incentive pay program okay and you have for 35 and 46 correct we now have additional directions recorded for items 35, 41 46 with no votes recorded for Supervisors McPherson Koenig and friend on item 28 yes that's correct I apologize for getting us confused on 26 if we could have a point of privilege could you just repeat the additional direction for the other two items yes we can for item 46 I received I recorded additional direction to send letters to local jurisdictions and school districts and then for item 35 we received we recorded additional direction to send the letter a letter to the receiver acknowledging the request for funding our county financial situation and that we are currently looking into options to fund it okay thank you and we'll direct the chair to write the letters just so that's clear okay if we could have a roll call vote please yes may I just receive who motioned and seconded motion from supervisor Cummings supervisor Hernandez supervisor Koenig I accepting 28 Cummings hi Hernandez hi McPherson and friend thank you thank you that passes unanimously except for on item 28 it is 1040 we have a 1045 scheduled item Mr. Pimitzel do you know how long this item would be anticipated to take on the fee schedule item okay then we'll move forward with item 7 and then we'll move with our 1045 schedule which is zone 5 thank you all for coming this morning and for your respect and patience item number 7 if I may read it into the record is a public hearing to consider a resolution improving amendments the unified fee schedule and adopt a resolution confirming amendments the unified fee schedule is outlined in the memo of the county administrative officer we have the board memo and a resolution confirming them and we have Marcus Pimitzel our county budget manager Mr. Pimitzel welcome back thank you Marcus Pimitzel your budget manager thank you for that our unified fee schedule is presented to you Richard today we come to this board twice a year in June and December for what are cosmetic updates to the fee schedule generally it's adjustments per CPI adjustments per state code our corrections and descriptions that is what are majority items here today the examples included in the resolution that attachments in the board pack include updates to accessory dwelling units increases in fees by CPI consumer price index for bulk recycled water, parkland and new fees and various other updates that are related to state codes or healthcare and Medicare Caline changes they are very simple this cycle as they were in the last time we were before your board in June with that the information is outlined in the board memo and presentation and we have departments here who are available for questions if there are any otherwise that concludes my presentation thank you are there any questions or comments from board members before we open the public hearing I see none would like to now open the public hearing this is an opportunity for members of the community to address us on the unified fee schedule please feel free to step forward good morning and welcome back good morning again Becky Steincroner I would like to ask as a member of the public that fees for TCU fire and flood victim rebuilding be reduced and that fees planning fees for ADUs be reduced to help the county not only help residents who have experienced these disasters rebuild but also to help the county meet our arena numbers with more affordable permit fees for ADUs thank you thank you anybody else in chambers is there anybody online chair we do not have speakers online all right we'll close the public hearing and bring back to the board for a motion recommended action we have a motion from supervisor conag and a second from supervisor McPherson if we could have a roll call vote please supervisor conag comings friend and that passes thank you mr. Pimentel we we'll move on to item we'll move on to our 1045 item I know it's going to take a minute do we have anybody coming from it's here from zone 5 as well we'd like to step forward I think we do so we'll bring people forward the slower you walk I need you to kill 90 seconds the better it's pretty fast it's pretty fast and we'll have a 1045 scheduled item I'll read it into the record and then I'll turn it over to the chair of zone 5 which is supervisor conag the item for a 1045 schedule which is item 12 is the board of supervisors shall recess in order to permit the board of directors of Santa Cruz county flood control water conservation district to zone 5 to convene and carry out a regular scheduled meeting and we have the agenda board memo I'll turn it over to supervisor conag for our zone 5 hearing meeting we are close but you can't look at that clock because that clock has been stuck on that for quite some time I promise you it's not 545 correct that clock says 545 1044 alright we've got 60 seconds alright I will officially call to order the flood control and water conservation district zone 5 board of directors regular meeting it is December 12, 2023 10 44 a.m. and 30 seconds work if you could please call the roll certainly director Cummings Hernandez friend McPherson Brown Balboni welcome feel free to come forward here and chair conag yes alright good as soon as we have a quorum are there any additions or relations to the consent or regular agendas no additional items okay we'll open oral communications as any member of the public wish to address us on items pertaining to the zone 5 flood control district thank you chair and board members Matt Machado director of CDI and your district engineer I do want to report a change in our staffing today I would have done this at the beginning of the board meeting but I had a meeting conflict so I showed up a few minutes late it's unfortunate that after report this but our assistant district engineer is leaving employment from the county the end of December to huge loss so we're sad to see him go but we're happy that he is on his way to a different career path slightly different not a lot different but he's been with the county for 21 years he has been an amazing leader an amazing manager and amazing engineer for us he's done so much good work he's a pillar in our organization and we're going to miss him greatly so I felt it was important to let you all know that he's made this decision and December 29th will be his last day so if you get an opportunity wish him well, bid him farewell we will miss him greatly he'll stay living here so hopefully he'll come back and visit us once in a while but I just want to thank him for all of his years of service and acknowledge him in front of your board today thank you for that thank you director Machado we will definitely miss him anyone else wish to address us on zone 5 we do have speakers on Colin user 1 your microphone is now available I'd like for this body to call for a halt to geoengineering weather intervention operations that are a huge factor in the catastrophic weather that we are observing and I'm quoting briefly Jane Wiggington of geoengineering watch he shates the drought day lose scenario is a hallmark of geoengineering that's just in part he is on cancel radio 8 a.m. Saturday morning 10 a.m. and he states that climate engineering operations covering the planet like a layer of glass climate ecological collapse 40 to 60 million tons annually of climate engineering particles are dispersed our system is collapsing at real time this is extremely serious and a factor that needs to be considered and it's largely ignored when we're talking about floods and droughts etc. he says climate engineering is a planetary death sentence there's no limit to the deception and denial that's going on please call for a halt to weather intervention geoengineering operations that should be a step to help our county we have no further speakers here right and we'll proceed with the consent agenda which is items 5 through 8 any member of the board have questions or comments on the consent agenda seeing none do we have to comment on the what was to comment on the consent agenda anyone online alright then I'll return it to the board for action on the consent agenda I'll move approval of consent second motion by Director Brown second by Director Hernandez to approve the consent agenda I need for the discussion seeing none please call the roll Director Hernandez yes Cummings Balboni friend McPherson Brown passes with one abstention move on to the regular agenda item 9 which is to approve amendment to agreement with Schaff and Wheeler consulting civil engineers revising the scope of work term and increasing the compensation proof the transfer of $68,000 and $98 from the capital reserve funds into the master plan update funds and take related actions outlined in the memorandum of the district engineer and does our district engineer report on this good morning yes thank you the master plan update is the project itself is almost completed assessing the conditioning capacity of the facilities in the zone seeing the results and the impacts of the storms last year for this calendar year we discussed the need for being prepared for storms to fix our problems we discussed the need with the city of capital and we thought it's the right time to expand on the project itself and go seek funding assistance from the citizens in the community so we are proposing to change the scope of work to add that task and to vote for Prop 218 process at the same time removing a task that we felt is not necessarily related to impervious area impact fees because we already collect the fees and we cannot collect it for redevelopment projects which the fee can be collected once in the life of the impervious area fees so we dropped the task and we added this task for Prop 18 assessment to hopefully get sustainable funding to fix our problems thank you Ms. Fadouille comments or questions from board members not any member of the public wish to comment on this item no one here in chambers is there anyone online those speakers online chair we'll just say we're very much to the release of this draft master plan and moving into the public input phase of this of course it is a very important issue as we know from last year storm water and drainage effect us all be more than we realize until it's too late so with that is there a motion second motion from director McPherson second by director Hernandez any further discussion seeing none click will you please roll call vote certainly director McPherson friend Cummings Brown aye and Balboni aye and Koenig aye the motion passes unanimously that brings us to the end of our agenda and meeting is adjourned and I'll hand it back to chair friend thank you supervisor Koenig we'll move on to item 8 to consider a presentation on collective of results evidence-based investments or 4 annual report for fiscal year 2223 and report back on community engagement by direction for prioritization for the next cycle of the RFP development and direct the human services department current honor before April 30th 2024 the draft RFP is outlined in the memo of the director of human services for the agenda board memo the investments annual report for 22 and 23 and the core community engagement process and the prioritization methodology with us we have Randy Morris of director of human services director assistant director kick it off to you director Morris thanks for being here yes thank you good morning chair friend good morning board members and I have a very long agenda today and welcome to those here in chambers and listening in in a special recognition to the city of Santa Cruz want to remind everybody that this is a braided funding discussion where the city of Santa Cruz participates in this and Kimberly and I will be in front of the city council this afternoon and I will be in the office before we display the PowerPoint and go through a formal presentation I just want to say a couple of remarks core is an acronym which stands for collective of results and evidenced based practice I also want to say something that's become clear to me in my almost four years here is direction from this board before my time almost a decade ago was to develop a framework how to maximize limited funds to achieve collective impact and also to look at a way to ask for results to be reviewed based on sort of a more common way of collecting data from our community members and so this led to the creation of this framework called the core and I want to make sure to distinguish that as a movement which a number of CBO's and our city partners and we in conversations with our CAO's office looking at our next strategic policy as a framework to think about how to organize our funding and the way we track data and report on data that is part of and distinct from how we do an actual competitive procurement or the request for proposal and I just want to name both are in play right now which we'll talk about more today and finally a value of Santa Cruz County which I really appreciate is that we always focus on continuous quality improvement and applying lessons learned for every step of our work when we limited money out to the community for consideration. I also want to share with the board and with those listening something that I shared when Kimberly and I were last in front of you in April when we got direction to return today to discuss what we'll go through today that the amount of money we're talking about that will be in the next procurement cycle is approximately six plus million dollars a million plus dollars of city general fund and five plus million dollars of your general fund that six million dollars represents about one percent of the amount of county money that is spent to help the most vulnerable in our community through the county health agency the county human services department and all the contracts we manage and so I just want to put in perspective this is funding that is completely at your discretion from his general fund but I think it's important to remind the ability for it to impact and change is important and meaningful for the community. I don't want to say that it's not a HBCBO but it is one percent of the overall six hundred million dollars of funding that is spent to help people in our community. So last comment before we pull up the PowerPoint. I want to remind your board you have a lot of things on every single agenda today being certainly an example of that. We are here today because when we were in front of you in April that was to share with you a little bit about the importance of the last RFP cycle and we had recommended that we really sequence the next series of events thoughtfully and carefully and staged over time so we weren't rushed in making these very important decisions and your board approved a framework and a timeline which included us coming to you today for what we'll talk about today so I just want to make sure this is directly linked to previous direction from your board. So with that said if I could ask the clerk so if you could go to the next slide this is briefly the agenda we're going to summarize the recommended actions why we like to do this for something like this is to make sure those listening in and you as our board understand the very specific actions that you're voting on today. We are next going to speak about the annual report. We are just finished the first full year of the three year procurement cycle so we have a number of contracts that have delivered a number of services to the community they all submitted their reports to us and we have attached which is an attachment a summary of that annual report and we will discuss that briefly today because that helps us think about what worked what didn't work and how is the contracts going today. We will then speak about a pretty robust community engagement process we went through since we were last in front of you in April that was direction from your board to get input from our community members to help us think together and lift that up to you to share with you what the thinking is about what the next RFP should look like and I certainly invite members of the community who participated to share anything during public comment but this all leads to finally the beginning of a set of opportunities we are going to have to be in front of you to do what you asked us to do and not to misquote or overly summarize but essentially can we please have the hard discussions and ask us as elected officials to make the hard decisions to where to prioritize and focus this money because we don't have enough of it to fund every good idea and the request was can we as staff figure out a way to come to the board well before awards are recommended next time to have more input from you as our elected officials and decision makers to make prioritizations and then we as staff can implant and integrate those in the next procurement cycle so that is really where this all leads to today a first staff recommendation so if you can go to the next slide so here are the three recommended actions today one is the standard acceptance file of the materials the next is really what I want you to focus on we have staff recommendations in front of you and we are seeking direction from you because what direction we get from you today will be what we build into the next draft RFP and we will detail in our presentation other opportunities we see that you have as our elected to further give us more refined direction as we get closer and then finally and as chair sent friends that is an introduction for us to return in April which is part of the already approved board timeline to play out between now and the next procurement so the next slide and this is where I'll turn this over to Kimberly who walked through the annual report that is in materials of attachment a good morning board so as Randy mentioned continuous improvement is important as well as applying lessons learned and both of those have been integral to the core process from its inception to the present annually HSD has provided a report on the core funded programs and this year's report builds on prior feedback and lessons learned and uses closer to being able to see the collective impact and results across the four programs with a multifaceted equity lens this year there is more detailed data collection including on the number of unduplicated people served desegregated by race ethnicity, age, language and location as previously requested by the board and the overall structure allows for easier measurement and analysis across programs the results based accountability framework was utilized for all core programs which tracks how much was accomplished, how well were the services carried out and is anyone better off this year's report also includes a description of how each organization internally practices equity for challenges and successes most programs did encounter some type of challenge their first year some common challenges were staffing data collection for client demographics and working through the impacts of local disasters despite challenges there was also notable progress core programs served almost 107,000 people last year 6,000 almost 6,000 more than the contract goals indicated some level of demographic data was reported across all programs allowing us to see who specifically was served and 94% of surveyed participants reported that they were very satisfied or satisfied with the program services collectively 81% of the better off goals were met across all core programs and lastly thanks to the creation of an online reporting portal core programs submitted their annual report and data electronically which streamlined the data collection process and reporting and enabled us to include a brief two page snapshot for each program as a part of the annual report and as Randy mentioned though this is only 1% of the funding that goes to critical services the ability for us to begin to see this level of data across various programs will there allow us to better gauge the impact of core funding and further analyze potential gaps and needs for community engagement while we are just off the first year of the last round of contracts and into the second year we are moving quickly to prepare for the next RFP we are continuing to apply what we learned through experience, formal and informal feedback during the last RFP and the lessons learned process we presented to last April we conducted 9 community engagement sessions and provided access to an online survey the intent of the engagement was to discuss opportunities for improvement receive general feedback and explore the ways the county could prioritize core funding building off of the pain points that we saw in the last round of funding throughout the engagement sessions common areas of alignment emerged regarding data and transparency one of the things that we had heard following the last RFP was that people wanted to know what the priorities for funding were and during the community engagement there was alignment that data should continue to be a driver in the core process we also heard that prioritization should include a broad set of data points across the core conditions and there should be transparency around the purpose and priorities for funding from the outset on equity the last RFP was targeted at addressing in an equity and the collective feedback received through community engagement pointed towards support for continuing to center equity in the process we also asked a handful of more technical questions on the structure of the RFP during the last RFP there was a limit to how much any single organization could apply for and we heard that this should be continued during the last round the ability to leverage funds was not weighted in the scoring process and we heard feedback that it should not be prioritized for this next round either people felt that both of these parameters created more opportunity for the smaller and mid-size organizations with less infrastructure to compete for more distribution of funds during the last round any agency could apply for any size grant small, medium, large or the targeted impact and there was alignment and feedback that during the next RFP large agencies should be restricted from applying for small grants small grants should be an opportunity for small less resourced organizations to receive limited funding mass contract performance was not a factor in the last RFP and the feedback was that should not be included as a factor in scoring future applications either some felt it may give an advantage to organizations that were previously funded versus providing a free slate each round of RFP there were also a few areas without alignment we heard interest in having the purpose of core funding be clarified and whether it was for new innovative programs or traditional safety net services but there was no alignment on what that should be and acknowledging the definition of safety net can be seen as evolving over time no alignment emerged regarding how to prioritize funding such as by geography specific populations or core condition and there was no alignment in whether a portion of funds should be held for distribution by the elected officials following the recommended awards and while not noted on the slide we also heard general feedback that people wanted to see the scoring rubric in advance that there be an increased diversity in the review panels and that the application process be simpler we do not have specific recommendations for you on these items today though we are tracking them for the RFP development and once direction regarding prioritization is received we will integrate these themes into the draft RFP for your review when we come back we do of course welcome additional direction on these if you choose to provide it today so regarding prioritization considering the collective feedback regarding prioritization and the support for continuing to center equity and the use of data we tried to identify a data driven approach to how limited funds could be prioritized we landed on an approach that uses the core conditions of well-being as a foundation and then considers a representation of available data reports that connect to the eight core conditions and we combined that with a high level analysis of the county budget to determine where the current county general funds are directed relative to the core conditions the data reports on their own do not lead to a clear funding priority that HSD can recommend because there needs everywhere however the combination of available data plus high level funding analysis completed things to HSD's data team in partnership with our CAO and budget liaison allows us to use a data driven approach to prioritization which will incrementally get us closer to greater collective impact and results with very limited funds and I'll turn it back to Randy okay thank you Kimberly so I want to remind the audience watching that this is a very small snapshot of what is included in attachment C and just at the risk of repeating what Kimberly said I want to just remind everyone we were asked to come forward to you as staff to ask well before the RFP was released for you as the board to give us your priorities based on your values and to do what we could in partnership with community to ask you to make hard decisions now as opposed to after the rewards come forward like it's sort of a little too late so as Kimberly said this picture is in the attachment thank you for the CAO's office and our team who looked very closely and did a lot of work to look at the county's 1.2 billion dollar budget and broke it out thoughtfully to see where is the county currently contributing to these core conditions more importantly then peeled back and said which portion of this budget is general fund because most of the programs at least we run in human services and health are heavily leveraged by state and federal funds and what this clearly showed us is there are 3 core conditions which are shown in the yellow highlight in this picture where we do not invest a lot of general fund they are thriving families lifelong learning and education and stable affordable housing and shelter this shows us that of the 8 core conditions there are we do not have a lot of general fund and in response to your board and the community's request to look at some data to perhaps give you a window to where we think you could have the most targeted impact we are recommending as our primary recommendation number 1 today to have the RFP written based on these 3 core conditions being the priority to then do what the community asked us which is please let us know up front what the values are what the priorities of this board and I want to say a little bit about about 50 plus percent of current core contracts already are focused on these 3 core conditions which raise the question what are the other core conditions and what are those funding they are predominantly in 2 areas and I want to break down a little bit so the community can hear this and you can understand if you accept this recommendation what this means one of the core conditions that has a lot of funding today is economic security this there are a lot of community based organizations who focus on addressing poverty and self-sufficiency and I do not see in our staff analysis that anything by accepting these recommendations would prohibit or interfere with agencies that focus on addressing poverty from applying in the thriving families core condition any family that's suffering in poverty is not thriving and there's nothing in conflict with current agencies who have missions to focus on poverty and currently got awards by focusing on economic security to prohibit them from submitting applications to say families do not do well they are not thriving when they're suffering in poverty so we do not see that to be a conflict the second area where a lot of core funding is about a quarter of it is in the area of health and wellness if you accept this recommendation we recognize that we would be drafting an RFP and the CBO's who currently have funding under health and wellness would have to find one of the others three because of this we consulted in human services with health care leadership and we had a conversation about their thoughts about this and we did not bring this recommendation forward until we had their support and I want to break down a little bit for you to hear and the community to hear why first of the diversity of programs that the health care agency runs one getting a lot of attention of late rightly so at a state and federal level it was discussed earlier there is a lot of reform activity happening at the state to reform the way mental health is funded and there are new opportunities for mental health community based organizations to apply for funding under the initiative CalAIM which will go live in the future and in consult with the health care agency because this new door is open and because we are being asked collectively staff to make a recommendation to you to consider where to target the limited general fund given there is other opportunities to apply for mental health programming through CVOs that was one factor and the other is as I mentioned in the economic security area where there is no conflict with having their submit their applications under healthy families the same applies to health and wellness any family who has somebody suffering from a health condition and is not doing well we do not see a similar we do not see a conflict but to make sure we are very careful and intentional if this recommendation is approved and how we draft the RFP to you and it will be public the health care agency and thank you to their leadership agreed to work with us on the drafting of the RFP to make sure there is nothing we unknowingly due to limit the ability of the many wonderful health agencies in this community from applying it under this structure so this leads to the next slide which is the final slide and I want to take a minute to speak to what is in front of you this is a picture of what we brought forward to you in April and that you approved as the next series of events the reason the numbers one two three and four are here is we thought very hard about how much this program generates and how complicated this is and how hard it is to make these decisions so we are intentionally in front of you with an iterative recommendation to have today be just recommendation number one but we see point two point three and point four as future public hearings where you will and we likely will be asking you to give us further direction and we are trying to limit and chunk out the decision making point so we don't come in front of your big huge complicated ecosystem of direction but do this in stages so today as it says at the bottom of slide is to support our recommendation to go back and draft an RFP which focuses on three core conditions and of course if you give us any additional direction today we will incorporate that as well however for your consideration when we come to you no later than the end of April and we have a draft RFP that is another opportunity for your board and the city council later to give us further direction which we can then incorporate before releasing the RFP based on anything that has played out in the last months I want to particularly highlight number three this was something we had planned during the last RFP cycle but unfortunately and literally the omicon variant interfered with what here is number three we had planned to come to your board during the last RFP cycle with a summary of all the applications where they landed and asked the board in the city council behind to say based on this and before we as staff come back to you with recommended wards do you have any final direction for us because there's so many applications recommended to wonderful things what do you want us to focus on so we could then incorporate that in the final recommended wards that was lost because of the omicon variant your board approved this timeline which pushed forward six full months the process to create more space to have these hard conversations and if we cut you approve this today we'll back in front of you for that RFP in the spring and then as important at least as I see it we will then come to you before we recommend any awards and detail and summarize everything that's been settled not by agency name but by themes and summaries and ask for more direction from you because we anticipate there will be more applications to do more things than we have money and we will then incorporate that into coming back to you with final recommended wards and then that's number four this is your money you of course still retain authority to change any recommended wards at that point but if we do this we think we will have addressed some of those pain points from the past and incorporated your direction every step of the way so the recommended awards are more aligned with what is important to you with that said I my final comments I don't want to repeat everything that Kimberly said but I want to be very clear that we are very aware there are certain important issues to your board and the community partners who gave us feedback that are not in the recommendations today and Kimberly mentioned number of them if you give us additional direction today we will come back incorporate them to RFP but there are a few that were not named that I just want to point out that are important to us and we are tracking number one how to operationalize equity that's equities an easy word but I want to remind everybody what we did last time because the word equity generates a lot of feelings and a lot of opinions what we did very intentionally in consult with the community was we said you are the ones delivering the service you are the ones working with families and vulnerable people in this community we would like to have the RFP be one where you tell us what are the inequities you see in the work you do and then submit in your application how you will address that inequity I heard mostly positive feedback from the community saying thank you Government for not telling us and putting us in a box the one exception to that was for the targeted impact grant we focused and the community supported this on racial inequities that did not prohibit anybody from submitting an application saying I want to focus on the last next population that is aging or that is disabled or that is anything else but it was a request to focus on racial inequities but all the other applications the CBOs told us what the inequities were second your board directed us last time to carve out one grant from competitive application and that was the local meals program to line it up with the local AAA we know and we are mindful that we don't have any specific recommendations we welcome any additional direction we anticipate this conversation will play out if the board and the city council have consensus on other carve outs just want to name that we are aware there is no staff recommendation and finally I do want to highlight something that Kimberly told me and if we are going to talk the talk of equity we got some very meaningful reasonable feedback particularly from South County that spoke to us about the way the panels were assembled we used a conflict of interest policy which unintentionally but seem to end up landing on ruling out a representative sample of participants beyond panels and we will work very hard between now and then when panels are assembled to make sure we incorporate those lessons learned to make sure the panelists are represented and heard that feedback we will track that feedback and we will apply that going forward so with that said we turn it to the board for any questions or public comment or wherever you would like to go next thank you. Thank you director Morris so there are questions or comments from board members for we open up the community to those who are coming. Thank you. I just want to thank the human services department for its for your work to engage the communities regarding their feedback about the core investments this has been controversial since we put it in place but as we discussed in last week's board meeting the county can be incredibly proud of core and the way we implement it as I mentioned then I think last week that CSAC gave one of its challenge awards it honored 13 programs throughout 58 counties with 389 entries and this was one of them that they said was outstanding and the way we are doing it I think that really says a lot for the success and really the way we're doing this program and today's report shows the county's commitment to directing our limited core funding to effective data driven programs it's impressive I think as was mentioned above with more than 100 7000 responses they were either very satisfied or satisfied with what we are doing with core and I appreciate the HSD's hard work to ensure that the online survey community engagement and listening sessions included community based organizations providing direct services and coalitions such as the area agency on advisory council the community's feedback is critical to establishing the core priorities that you mentioned the framework for the next round of funding but we also need to recognize that the amount of funding is so limited the county can't meet every expectation articulated in the community engagement process the goal is really to have the best collective equitable impact of services we can fund we have hundreds close probably to a thousand of community service nonprofit agencies in this county most of them small but we're going to we're trying to address the biggest needs that we can with a limited funding we have set the 5 million in the county and 1 million dollars in the city so I encourage members of the of the public to read this full report that was put out on the core investments annual report again I want to thank director Morris and the human services services staff for helping the board make this evidence based decision for our core investments it's a hugely successful program we've made improvements to it you have listened to people and made those improvements and I look forward to implementing the second year of this program when we get to it next year thank you thank you Survisor McPherson, Survisor Cummings thank you chair thank you for this report I did have a question related to the new prioritization of programs and so I was wondering based on the staff recommendation how will the prioritization of these new categories impact currently funded programs largely because in the last round we saw that the applications that were recommended resulted in certain organizations not receiving funding which then had impacts to those organizations and so I'm just curious there's a way for us to better understand how changing this categorization is going to impact some existing programs I have two quick comments one is I want to mindful what happened last time because of the crisis the pandemic the omicron variant the decision got made so late the current providers had no real lead time and we found one time funding to create three months of bridge this under board direction of approval and city council approval and then moved up six months I know that's not directly on point but I want to make sure you know some of the public procurement cycles align with how we have now so we have way more lead time for the agencies who if your board accepts the process and accepts your board and certain lose funding there's way more lead time to transition built into this process number two in full transparency the way the current core contracts are organized is applicants had to pick one core condition but they were allowed to submit others because the core framework is an interconnected framework and many of them applied under one but are doing other things we track the data on what they applied for it's hard to track the second and third so with that said about two thirds of the current programs would fit within this framework without issue further and we haven't got to this now but there was a lot of technical assistance available last time we would plan to apply it this time current program we have a lot of technical assistance available we have a lot of CBOs who got an award in a different core contract as I said about economic security and health and wellness we see at least on the original review ample opportunity to organize their applications to be within these core conditions because this is predominantly where most of our agencies deliver service so that said I don't think there's any way around and I think that's part of what the pain point has been here as agencies had funding for 30 years without change a competitive current creates change which by definition people get contracts and people lose contracts and I think that pain point there's no way around it unless you upend the whole process building in the six months lead time having the three focus areas based on we're not very well invested there are still lots of other contracting opportunities outside of core where CBOs can deliver service and certainly do have contracts so I hope that's responsive but please let me know if that answered it if you have more questions that answer my question to some extent I guess one of the things you touched on earlier was the fact that you know as the state and federal government changes the way different programs can be funded some of the work that was funded previously by core can actually get funded by some other source of funding so I think oh my god I'm blanking on it right now but the CalAIM being able to see funding from CalAIM go to something else so I think that's important for tracking because if there's a way to fund something under core with that funding source which could then mean that we could fund other programs that maybe wouldn't receive funding otherwise I think that's a good way to try to help us maximize our funding over time as we have this program kind of roll out I guess I don't know now's a good time but I do have some comments to make just having gone through the report one thing that I think is really challenging but what's really going to come down to is the applications that get submitted which is why I think is really important for the public and for the board to see what programs are being considered because I think it will help us better understand the gaps these programs are trying to fill and the gaps that currently exist so I think that's actually something that would help be beneficial to us as this program unfolds is really understanding what are the current gaps in our system and just as a brief example you know if we look at childcare as an example of programs I mean that's something that we saw cuts to last time we'd see I hear from many people that's probably one of the biggest priorities in our community that we need more access for people have childcare so just using that as an example because if there's if that's a gap and we have more funding and some of those organizations can leverage funding whether it's a state or federal level to expand those services I think that's important versus you know the county is getting a lot of money for homelessness right now so would we want to divert you know a huge chunk of core funding to homelessness it's like well we're being successful at securing funding from the state so maybe this isn't the right source so just put that out there so we can really start to consider what are the gaps what are the funding opportunities and if there's no way for there to be state or federal funds maybe those types of programs should fall under core and be considered and prioritized in the application process Chair Friend is it appropriate to make comment to a board comment so I think a way if I heard you correctly to move forward on your what I'm hearing is your request to make sure the board understands the applications I want to highlight and repeat what I said before is the build-in of coming to your board and the city council behind you with a summary of the recommendations will then lift up for you what the trends are and you mentioned child care for example you would have ample opportunity either at the RFP release or I think at that point to say wait the landscape has changed the state budget is out now and I if the board recommends you could target us to say come back with recommended awards that focus here focus there so that's I think one way to operationalize that and I would see perhaps if you agree with this when we bring the RFP forward you can give us any direction at that time about what you want in the staff report that summarizes the applications so that's number one and then I also wanted to say mindful it was kind of careful about how much to say about this but it so happened the data led us to these three core conditions but those three core conditions do fit with a lot of what we've been hearing from the community they include child care you mentioned homeless funding and you and I've talked about this but I want to nuance this there is a lot of federal and state funding for various homeless programs but there's no federal state funding for emergency shelters or warming centers so there's some nuance in there but by prioritizing based on we're not very well invested in emergency shelter and affordable housing there's ways to parse that out under your direction the family thriving families also really lines up well with the recent Kimberly and health and first five talked by five initiative and there's lots of under investment in there prioritization in this county about families and undocumented immigrants and also the master plan for aging helping people who are disabled and aging age in place with their families fits very well with the healthy families so there are lots of meaningful important priorities that have already been discussed publicly that fit well with these three buckets and I think from your previous question if this is approved there's a limit and I think that opportunity to share the details will be when you can give us final direction to make those choices rather than care the recommended awards and have concerns about what got voted by the panel members just a couple of the comments just based on reading the report I do you know in terms of what this funding should go towards I do think that this money should go to both existing services and for new programs and that was brought up in the report I think it would be good to include in the application how funding can be used to leverage more funds I think if this program the idea is we're trying to maximize funding and services knowing whether an organization can leverage small pools of money to expand services in our community I think is really important and it's not to say that that means that we're going to select that organization just gives us the information we need what's being proposed and how local funds can be used to maximize other funds it also allows us to understand whether or not we can you know we don't use core funds as their way to supplement the funding with another source of funding and so I think that it's just good to have that information I think that if organizations have received funding in the past and are applying for new funds we should get some information on how the funding was spent and what were the outcomes from the programs that they provided because we want to I mean it's a level of accountability on our end that if we're giving organizations funding we want to know how you know how those programs are actually turning out I don't think there should be a cap on the funding but I think we should express that there's a priority on maximizing funds and services across diverse agencies I mean if an agency tries to apply for all the funds they're likely not going to get it but I think it is interesting for us to know what folks are applying for you know if we don't fund them again are there other ways that we can find funding to support what they're trying to do but really expressing that the goal behind this is to maximize funds across you know diverse agencies I think is really important for us to express I think it would be really important to have information on the application that identifies what the agency size is and what the agency's budget is to help you know define the size of the agency which was brought up in the report and there should also it also be important to know whether a grant writer was contracted in the RFP process this for us is you know we know that larger organizations they're going to write much better grant if they can hire a grant writer versus a small organization that may have to rely on their existing staff to write the grant and the reason why I say this too is because around it was kind of best application wins well if you're able to afford a grant writer you're going to have a much better application than someone who can't or maybe not but I think it's important to kind of know what access folks these organizations had to having someone who could either professionally write a grant or that they have to write the grant on their own I think that is an equity issue that can be that we can help address if that information is clear and then lastly I think the supervisors in public should have access to the applications when they come available so that we can read the applications and know what's being offered and the public can weigh in you know more broader members of the public can weigh in and then and especially having the board weigh in on the application selection process and I know that you had mentioned that because of Omicron we didn't get access to the applications last time but that was a big sticking point for me why I had such a huge issue with this because I couldn't read over the scoring I couldn't read over what was being proposed by the different organizations and that really had a huge influence on on why I was pretty upset with how things went and so I'll just leave my comments there but just wanted to put that out since you all asked for our input and this might be you know this is one of our opportunities to to publicly kind of present to you all concerns that we have thank you. Thank you supervisor Cronig sorry supervisor Hernandez quick questions about criteria the rubric kind of methodology of it but I'm that we're trying or hopefully we're trying to make it more accessible to smaller mid-sized CBOs I know that the equity is part of the criteria or the rubric right you know obviously that's raised but are we looking at economic disparity as part of equity and like since tracks and if so are we doubling like on the rubric the points if there is both right both economic disparity and racial right are we doubling down the points for the rubric the rubric points right to award that that agency in my second question is with awardees are we tracking the level of service that they're doing and and tracking that they meet the level of service they're saying they they're doing and if so are we using that data for future awards at least internally for part of the rubric we just whispered I'll take the first really take the second and this is how I'm tracking your first question about equity at the risk of repeating what I said we wrote the last RFP in response to community feedback that how to operationalize equity is very complicated and there was a request to have us not impose upon the community what we defined as equity so we specifically invited the CBOs you tell us to your question you tell us what inequities you see based on whatever metric poverty levels region ethnicity you tell us what inequities you see and how if awarded this contract you would help to decrease those inequities so we created a wide berth the second part of that is how did we score that and one of the things that we can apply and learn from a pain point in the past is we are so rushed there's so much going on when the RFP was released the scoring rubric which showed how we plan to wait and score things was not part of it we plan to release that all as once so for me if I'm understanding your question you would have an opportunity when we come forward to you with the next RFP drafted based on this is the first run then we would write all this in and we would have the scoring rubric we would show what our recommendations for how to have a chance to weigh in and say you accept that or you want us to change it so that's how I think we would get at what I'm hearing your question to be and then you had a second question which Kimberly nodded she'll answer so I didn't track it so regarding what we're doing with the progress reports from each of the CBO's programs we are our general approach to the core programs all of them is that we want to see them be successful so this year was the first year for some programs some programs that was funding to continue something they were already doing and for programs that were not fully meeting any area of what they had planned to do we just work with them and check in on you know what how it's going of their you know what approaches they're taking to try and achieve success and so what you're seeing in this report is the year one snapshot next year we'll intend we will provide the same type of snapshot and same in the third year and hopefully over time we'll see that any program that is not fully achieving at schools currently that they'll work towards that over time does that help answer the question Surveyser Cohnig thank you chair first off I want to just appreciate all the data that's being provided to us today it's really great to honestly to know all of the programs that were funding better based on the results based on the testimonials from people who are benefiting from these programs and have data that we can even compare programs between one another so I appreciate that one question I guess to start off with one of the big issues we experienced last time was kind of getting back to what you mentioned that this is just the core program of the money that the county spends and really the kind of one of the cleanup actions if you will after the last core awards were to look at some of the applicants who did not get funding and see how we could fund them through the other 99% through contracts to deliver their services that we were honestly seeking through other channels so it is sort of like could we streamline the application process a little bit maybe identify some folks who would be good candidates for those other contracts the other 99% early on rather than after the awards are being made or determined could we have some kind of letter of intent process where we just get a sense of planning on applying and we can reply to them and say you know that's great but we actually have these other opportunities if you consider just responding to this RFP that's coming out from HSD and whatever a couple of months I want to share a couple of ways I'm processing your comment one is you never know what the budget is going to be like at the point time we're in front of the board again for recommended awards and it's predicted to be a very difficult budget season and just not that this is directly what you're saying but I think every time we come forward I mean if recommended awards are approved and certain agencies doing good work are not funded because their application wasn't ranked high enough there's always opportunity to ask the departments is there other funding sources and we did find one funding source that was very categorically restricted that we repurposed because we had some one-time money to help one of the agencies have one-year bridge funding so that can obviously be part of something to do number two we don't talk about this a lot publicly but we do and we can continue to community-based organizations are aware of the opportunities for us to partner and co-apply and since the last RFP cycle somewhat informed by some of these discussions we did co-apply with a couple of CBOs for some state and federal grants as public and private to try to help and then I think number three there is a broader effort going on with our community-based organizations looking at how we contract with them and I think there's space for us to continue to have that conversation to make sure they're aware and they're very aware and I think the smaller agencies have less infrastructure funding opportunities that aren't just county but sometimes state and federal and I think we can in those conversations there's already a lot of like how do we contract, how do we uniform our so in that space we can continue this conversation with the CBOs to make sure they're aware and we often get asked to sign support letters to state and federal and philanthropic grants and we're happy to do that particularly targeting those who have lost funding for whatever reason so I hope that's responsive it's going to be a difficult budget year I don't know if we'll have that one-time money available but if we do I think we'd certainly have that conversation then. So it sounds like it is somewhat part of the discussion the fact that there's other funding opportunities or channels available and that's good just to encourage you to continue to incorporate it and make that part of the outreach process and discussion with CBOs that are applying as far as the priorities go I think one I'm supportive of the proposed priorities and certainly childcare is a need that we hear of a lot I think that is addressed in the thriving families core condition and making that a priority I'm also really supportive of number three which is staple affordable housing and shelter and while yes we do receive a significant amount of money to address homelessness it's through over 40 different grants they're all restricted funding and the challenge I've consistently faced on this board is we know that there's a need whether that's shelter or temporary housing or safe sleeping or safe parking but we just don't have the grant for it and I really think that we need to prioritize some of this some of our only discretionary funding in this county for being able to address those high performing and needed solutions to homelessness to housing and shelter it's been a consistent consistent struggle so I'm very supportive of allocating a good portion of this funding I mean somewhere between one and two million to that core condition as far as other considerations I agreed generally with some of the comments that Supervisor Cummings made which is ultimately with this funding we're yes we want to encourage a variety of organizations to apply but ultimately our priority has to be the best results for the most people so actually I remember as far as the question of whether it should be a preference for state or federal funding or being able to leverage state and federal funding I kind of remember that being one of the notes coming out of the last process that we did want to make sure that we had that information and potentially prioritize those programs that could leverage state and federal funding because at the end of the day if it's a choice between one program where we're putting a dollar into the community and another where that dollar is matched by $5 from the federal government the likelihood is that the 6x impact is ultimately going to be the best thing for the community I think we need that data at the very least I also think that we should at least consider past performance I mean ultimately this is the about results and evidence and we should have some accountability and consider the results and the evidence that we're seeing when making awards for the coming year and you know finally I've said as part of the coming said I don't know so necessarily agree that small grants should be confined to small organizations can be innovative too and see a need that they haven't been able to address before and use this opportunity to do so of course small organizations can be more nimble at the end of the day there shouldn't be about one organization or another or prioritizing size one way or another I think it's about prioritizing the best results for the community so that's I would like to see our consideration of the applications go thank you I have a couple of brief comments on this before we open it up for the community first there's an appreciation for the amount of work that has gone in as one of the two members on the board that have been through this that have seen both worlds and been through the process since the before times and the after times of the core process and the iterations of core it really has significantly improved from the original vision to where it is now that is because of a real openness from you the two of you in particular but your team to make these modifications as needed I would like to just put a footnote in and a note of caution for our board that as we it does feel though just just listening to this that we're almost creating $8 million a process for $6 million of funding and so I want to make sure that we don't get so slammed on wanting information and so slammed on on the amount of public outreach and so slammed on this that we actually create that we actually need to we're paying people to do things that are here for the safety net and every moment that they're doing this they're not actually providing services and safety net and I think at the end of the day we're sometimes forgetting how much time with our additional direction we're tying up the team from doing the work that we actually all want them to do and it just sounds like when I heard you describe what happened between our last vote and today that it was like three FTE equivalents worth of work that I would have rather have been delivering services to the most needing our community and so I just want to caution us so I mean at the end of the day the data and all those information is useful but if it's not going to really change our mind on anything we should just trust the professionals to come back with professional recommendations two other points one of them is I recognize that there was no alignment on in essence the set aside I still think that that's a good idea because one take away I'm getting here is that we'll never create a perfect process there's no such thing as a perfect process is five of us think that define it differently the community to find the different CBOs to find it differently and so I feel as though we go through a defined process with what appears to be another lot of check-ins between now and that that final day and there will still be at the end of that process those that feel that the process didn't deliver for them and so as a result of that I think it makes sense to have a percentage set aside for complete flexibility on things that either we couldn't have envisioned and at that time in the last funding there was actually world events that came out that were actually new needs kind of came up in that amount of time on programs that had historically been funded that weren't funded that maybe the board would have liked the flexibility and even though technically we do have full flexibility on the funding there's also an honoring of the process otherwise what's the point of the process so I'm still very supportive of having a percentage set aside for complete flexibility for these decisions I actually think it would resolve a lot of what supervisor Cummings is saying is that at the end of the day if we don't if we understand the value but maybe don't completely understand why something was prioritized over something it allows at that last point to actually be able to fund that all the same now the second thing is that I understand that there was I agree with both my colleagues comments on the leveraging component I think that I mean there's a part of me that's debated whether we even should continue this at all I mean because how much time and effort for this amount of investment one percent and but at the end of the day if it can be leveraged I think that there's a greater value there and whether that's a priority versus whether it's just a percentage I don't know but I think that if a dollar can be turned into five or eight ultimately I think that we can agree that there isn't enough money to fund all the worthy programs that are dealing with a safety net of issues that are exacerbated they're unique to this community due to cost of living and a million of other challenges that we have here so it would prove us to try and maximize that amount of money and so I still believe that we should do that as well all right we're going to open it I'm sorry please Mr. I just want to make one comment about the set aside thinking that this is a reminder worthy of lifting up for public to respond to and then the board when you deliberate what to do the lessons learned from two RFPs ago before I was here CBOs were frustrated that staff recommended awards sometimes recommended they get funded at 50 percent of what they applied for in response to that and this is what I want to remind because it leads into an idea to consider we had in the last RFP which the board that was seated then approved to give staff discretion up to 10 percent of what to do with recommended awards to be able to make the math work and we ended up using that 10 percent to deal with the pain point of a lot of the frustration and so we reduced with board approval every grant by 10 percent and then repurposed that 10 percent to fund more I only share that to say if you don't give us additional direction today we certainly can build into the RFP a concept like that which is written so that the CBOs know they're going to get if awarded something within the ballpark what are they applied for potentially a certain percent whether it be a staff follow up to adjust or board discretion I think there is some conceptual framework that worked last time that could be how to build into the next RFP so I just wanted to remind that we already had that kind of set aside not for all of us to play with accepting the recommended awards but then making adjustments so that already was built in the last RFP we could figure out a way to build it in differently if we have different direction from you this time I was envisioning a different life because the reason for this review was because of a relatively universally held belief that it didn't function well I actually didn't share that belief I felt it did function well I think the fact that there was consternation and debate meant that the system was working because it wasn't the way it had always been historically and that's this is I mean it's painful right but that's the point of I mean the one side we can't say we want data and metrics and all this information on the other side say but nothing should change I mean I don't understand the point of that those are divergent things so I didn't mind the challenge but I'm saying what I was just trying to solve I was trying to land a plane that's going to be universal unless at that time there can be what is perceived of flexibility by board members which I think is an underpinning component some define it as more data more information more transparency that's great but I think ultimately it's just people they have a sense that their flexibility decision-making is being taken away and I'm trying to land that out as a 25% or whatever the number is to define that more clearly alright I'd like to open it up for the community or for members of the community to address us on this item Good afternoon, David Schwartz not quite afternoon yet candidate for to actually if he leaves I'm not sure that this is the right place to mention this or not but I would like to advocate for senior citizens there's a great avalanche coming and I know that we have programs for senior citizens but I'm hearing that there's gaps there's gaps in people that can't get to the doctor there's people that can't get out of their house there's people that can't find adequate food there's people that can't afford housing at a level where I don't think we're really looking at you know we like to think about the children we think about the families we like to think about you know the people that we see every day the the veterans that can't find a home but I think we need to be prepared for this avalanche that's coming and we need to start thinking about the needs of that group of people that maybe they don't have children maybe they don't have a relatives maybe they live alone maybe they don't have a phone even so we need to go out there and look and see what we need to do to help people that can't help themselves thank you very much thank you and thank you all for waiting for this item we do appreciate it good morning and welcome good morning thank you I'm Corinne Jones I'm the director of programs for senior network services thank you so much for the opportunity to speak just briefly I want to encourage you to ensure that priorities are clear that current and historically funded programs serving older adults need absolute consideration in core process the loss of funding for the ombudsman program as an example has placed it in a bit of peril contrary to things that I read in the community engagement process there needs to be an alignment on how to prioritize to make sure that the core funding be in alignment and in terms of the priority the population of focus is very important older adults are separate and above and different than children someone once said we do not want to see people become a hero of children while being a villain of older adults we want heroes for everybody and so there are organizations that will give every time to children or they will give it to conservative conservancy issues that's what I'm trying to say just please keep in mind older adults they're in the twilight of their lives their dues have been paid are surviving so many many different things in this country has proven that keep them in mind please focus on them the elderly should be recognized because they are frail they're older and many of them have no other options other than the safety net programs that are provided thank you thank you ma'am appreciate it good morning welcome back thanks for waiting good morning thank you so much for the time and for all of your service my name is Tracy Weiss I'm the executive director with the O'Neill C. Odyssey and currently serve as a commissioner on the commission for environment here at the county concern for the environment is at all time high we know that a healthy resilient environment is important indicator and takes care of so many aspects of our community's health well being and livelihood recent reports from the Ramona bay national marine sanctuary regarding single use plastics from the resource conservation district and the value that the natural world brings along with the annual report that the C. Odyssey puts out demonstrates again and again that we know what we know intrinsically that a healthy environment matters to our individual health to our community vitality and to economic prosperity while I understand there is an incredible competition for a limited number of resources I am here to ask that we consider a fourth priority for next year that the healthy environments be considered in this equation at this time healthy environments has not been mentioned as a priority not only in our current cycle but in for future funding and I would really encourage that we take a look at that as we invest in the natural world we are investing in a climate resilient future one that is equitable for all residents in our community I would ask that we put this as a consideration as we go forward so thank you so much for your time thank you and thank you for your work morning welcome back morning my name is Deira Flores and I am a community mobilization leader with county park friends and also a park activity designer and I also serve as a commissioner in the latino park commission and today I'm here to speak about the core funding because in the most recent funding core cycles 0% of funds went to the condition called healthy environments and this is a concern of mine because this only highlights a fact of the that we know very well that only 4% of our budget overall goes to the healthy environments 4% of the condition that I for fact know because I have worked in the community with the community presenting them with nature right there on community and I have witnessed the beneficial effects the programs centered around community input have on my marginalized communities mental health as you hear here as being one of the most impact conditions positively with our nature I would argue that we will need far less money for our health and wellness condition if all families have their access to outdoor activities I would like you to take reference to the county park strategic plan based on input for over 1000 residents in the previous 6 months and in my opinion mentioning this strategy will enhance the climate action strategy and provide more context for the funding suggestion hopefully we will get that in consideration thank you thank you and thanks for your work morning welcome back good morning everyone Mariah Roberts executive director of county park friends thank you for your service for all you do for our community so I applaud the intention of human services department to invest in our community using a social determinants model called core investments as a community we've identified these 8 core conditions in the last 6 months of our life however as you pointed out in the report we have not always funded them equitably in the most recent cycle zero funds went to the condition called healthy environments and so I bring your attention to the page 61 in the report again we're applauding this comprehensive assessment of the conditions but and again it's showing that our funding is not balanced we have 4% of our total budget that's going to the healthy environments core condition and as my colleague said you know we posit that if all you had equitable access the healthy environments through activities etc we would require much less for potentially other conditions I want to highlight that most of us think of healthy environments as part of our identity and economy in this community but inequity is incredibly real we have 2.7 acres per thousand people in spotter valley versus 27 acres per thousand in north county this needs to be addressed we understand that we might be able to apply under another condition it's very disheartening however because we believe that healthy environments themselves have value so just putting that forward we would like to ask that you consider a fourth condition at least and if you are able to act upon that we would ask that in that second part of the report you look at different adopted plans to reference for your funding recommendations that you include the county parks strategic plan with its recently adopted accepted 5 year update 1500 community members gave in thank you so much thank you Ms Roberts appreciate it good afternoon welcome back thank you Tony Nunez marking and communication manager for community bridges and before I start I just want to say thank you to the board of supervisors and also the CEO's office also serve on the board of directors for the Potter Valley health care district which oversees Watsonville community hospital so just thank you for your continued support there I wanted to speak today and share my experience at the in person core input session in south county at the Watsonville communities room it was a really great conversation about what core currently is possibly be in the last half hour of that session when we're supposed to be going through the survey questions and giving our opinions on those it really evolved into a great conversation of nonprofit and human services providers both big and small medium sized service providers of what the big concerns are for south county service providers and I just want to share both of them one is that it needs to be more of a focus on equity with the idea that the biggest need with throughout the county is both in south county and the live oak area where those two locations in the county are among the most unhealthiest places to live according to the healthy places index from the state of California and then also that this process has not been focused on individuals but it's been focused on equity for nonprofits and I think that that's the lens that we should be looking at this process is how do we keep equity at the center of this but equity not necessarily for nonprofit leaders not necessarily for nonprofit providers but for the people who benefit from the services that the nonprofits provide so thank you so much appreciate the opportunity thank you mr. news good afternoon welcome back good afternoon play camp seniors council area agency on aging and I want to thank the board and staff for this thoughtful conversation and of course for the commitment to continuing to fund nonprofits and the recognition of how effective they are at helping our community couple points I need to make some have already come up on today but the report lists priorities of the area agency on aging and those actually aren't that list of priorities did not come from us that's why advisory council members haven't seen it's why our board hasn't seen those priorities they came out of a meeting where various agencies serving older adults provided feedback even within that there was some key components that are missing so I want to share what those are one is that we feel funding should be prioritized for life sustaining programs somebody that provides food shelter protection from abuse that needs to be elevated over a program that is showing at risk population something fun to do both are important but we think there can be some prioritization there and we also think mandated services need to be part of the priority if something is required by law and requires a local match then that local match and that mandate that mandate be at federal state local whatever should take some presidents and we also want to make sure that throughout the process that there's review of programs that are not funded as well as programs that are funded and that's been a criticism of mine since core version one happened core version two the same thing happened if the board doesn't know the results of the funding process it's hard to make good decisions we also would encourage revisiting cores intent to restate that it is about maintaining a local safety net because I think there's a lot of confusion about what that should be and then I just want to express our concerns over two things that have happened first first year core childcare was cut by 150 thousand senior programs cut by 180 thousand second year senior programs were cut by 180 thousand childcare was eliminated and I don't think that's the board's intention we want to make sure the board does see the impact in the results of the process thank you mr. anybody else in chambers is there anybody online yes sure we have speakers online Nora your microphone is now available hi there I'm Nora Caruso from the Santa Cruz toddler care center co-director I just want to start saying how heartening it is to feel heard at this time yeah childcare was cut so significantly had such a huge impact and it feels good to know that you saw that that you noticed and that you're paying attention thank you we specifically were cut 90% of our funding we got the bridge funding for three months and then we were completely dropped so what that meant for us was that despite having 150 families on our waiting list and getting calls almost daily from mostly low income families I had to tell them I'm sorry we can no longer provide the sliding fee scale that we've provided for decades in this county which is heartbreaking you know we do not want to be a center that provides childcare for the wealthy we really want to provide care for a diverse population in our county we don't just provide childcare we provide wraparound services such as home visits parent support meetings community events healthy meals and the loss of this funding you know was incredibly impactful for it for our population the other thing I want to address is this idea of leveraging funds as a small nonprofit we're not able generally to leverage federal and state funds from the county and the city which means we really need your help with these funds we're a small nonprofit and finally thank you for including that quote in that first slide that said because of access to early care and education I was able to keep my job and housing this is the way in which you're leveraging funds the ROI the return on investment for childcare is $13 to every $1 spent please thank you consider childcare again Colin user one your microphones now available I've seen priorities overall in this country going for munitions and warfare billions to Raytheon Lockheed Martin cetera siphoning out funds from our county for needed services we are in corporate rural and dictatorship by these corporations we need to address poverty yes we have poverty because of this structure of where the money is going and the very wealthy you very disappointed me just prioritized your values when three of you voted to not have a ceasefire that would have temporarily at least stop the obliteration of the civilians and thousands of people in Palestine and stop the money flow for these weapons the money you do have you asked about our priorities as citizens living here I'd like to see a rule of first do no harm prove policies are safe and you have radiated the environment with all the broadband cell towers cell antennas radar signs this creates an unhealthy environment and a salt on our health and you have been provided with data on those facts over the years including from Barry Trower thank you Ms. Garrett are there any additional speakers online yes chair reminder this is a core the comment should be associated with the item core funding please Heather your microphone is now available Hi I'm Heather Burkez and I'm one of the co-executive directors at the Santa Cruz toddler care center I second everything that Nora Cruz has said I am here to urge this committee to prioritize the categories lifelong learning and education and thriving families in the upcoming core RFP to address the current needs in our county and the Santa Cruz Childhood Advisory Council 2023 strategic plan they noted that Santa Cruz County has a shortage of about 15,000 childcare spaces and that there are 12,700 children who would be eligible to receive subsidized childcare but are unserved more specifically only 26% of the demand for infant child care is being met that means our county is not meeting the childcare need of 74% of families with children two years and younger in a united way study they have noted that after housing childcare is the second biggest expense families face the lack of childcare deeply impacts the financial stability of young families because without childcare parents are unable to return to the workplace they are unable to survive in a place to seek other county health services like for housing and food and security that they might not need if they were able to join the workforce and a lack of funding negatively impacts the programs that are able to serve these communities and is turning quality childcare programs into places that serve the affluent and are taking away equity in our community it is time for our county to start putting young families in one of our most vulnerable and I strongly urge you to prioritize these two categories in the upcoming car thank you thank you Lynn your microphone is now available thank you this is Lynn McKibben I live in Boulder Creek and I'm a senior citizen and I've just come to make a few comments about seniors in our county our senior senator in San Lorenzo Valley was one of the competitors in the last round of grants and of course we didn't score quite well so we lost our county grants and we were really in danger of closing as other senior centers in the county have in the past however our board stepped up and has been running this senior senator for two years now three years now but we are looking for other funding for staff so I just really feel that there's not enough understanding or recognition of the enormous positive contribution that senior centers make to the equitable health and well-being of seniors in Santa Cruz County and that's the end thank you we have no further speakers chair okay we'll close public comment and bring it back to the board for a motion is there a motion to advisor Cummings I'll make I just want to make the motion I'm just going to bring it up real quick I just want to thank everyone again for weighing in on this I think we've got a lot of great information about what the community wants to see as priorities and hope that we can incorporate that into this process and so the recommended actions consider and report for fiscal year 2022-23 and report back on community engagement provide direction on the staff recommendation for prioritization for the next core RP funding cycle and what I'd like to add to that is the in addition to the staff recommended categories and healthy environments and stable affordable housing and shelter and that's something that supervisor Koenig brought up is something that would be important to include in this process and hearing from the community if we don't have healthy environments we're not able to exist and so I think that allowing for people a lot of organizations working in the environmental sector to apply is really important and so I'm adding those two sorry for the comments in the middle of the motion and then direct the payment services department to return on or before April 30th 2024 with the recommendations for the draft of the next cycle of the core investments RFP if I got it not it's appropriate I just want to clarify as you consider additional direction the current direct the current recommendation from staff does include to prioritize stable affordable housing and shelter so that's already included in the staff recommendation what's not is the one you added so just the technical issue in terms of if you get a vote of adding a fourth I would just say as staff you asked us to come back and narrow it's completely your choice but we're trying to narrow based on the data we shared with you I'd like to add healthy environments based on the feedback we had today is there a second second there additional discussion do you need it as additional direction some of the comments that were made in regards to either set of sides or the leveraging if agreeable to the board short answer no we tracked closely we'll rewatch this and we'll do everything we can to incorporate all the comments you made as our elected officials and build it in an affirmatively point out how we incorporated those into the RP including if for some reason the staff we didn't see a way to include it like we have to consult with GSD on the county's public procurement process and we can release RFPs there's things we'll work on we will name what we've incorporated and we'll name if we haven't why not and then you can then deliberate and accept or redirect that's part of the so I think we're fine and we will try to incorporate all we can into the RP okay I'm fine and we have a motion for the recommended actions with an additional direction should we do a roll call within a second from Supervisor Hernandez we got a roll call please Supervisor Koenig Aye Cummings Aye Hernandez Aye McPherson Aye and friend Aye and I'm going to request that we actually break into close session now for about 30 minutes we can return at 1245 is there anything that we anticipate to be uh reportable out of close session no all right so the board will be in close session until about 1245 we'll be back here we're going to move on to Recording in progress sorry we're going to move on to item 9 it's uh public hearing to consider report on the 2024 growth goal adopt a resolution establishing a growth rate of 0.5% for year 2024 in the unincorporated area excuse me the unincorporated portion of the county the planning staff to file sequence notice of exemption is outlined in the memo the deputy CAO director of county community development and infrastructure with the agenda board memo item the resolution establishing the growth goal the sequence of exemption growth goal report the planning commission resolution staff report and the growth report cover letter uh good afternoon apologize for that I appreciate both of you waiting go ahead thank you chair friend and good afternoon board of supervisors Mark Connolly principal planner in policy for cdi with me this afternoon is to my right is Natisha Williams senior planner in policy for cdi and what we have for you today is the 2024 aforementioned growth goal and what this does is really sets forth a target for the unincorporated area for market rate growth the process annually is twofold one is it needs to go to the planning commission for recommendation to the board first of all so that happened on October 25th 2023 where the planning commission heard the item and recommended unanimously that the board adopt the 2024 growth goal they did have a few small comments that are addressed in your staff report before you today uh so with that I'll ask the clerk to bring up the presentation and Natisha Williams will provide a brief presentation for you thank you good afternoon so today we're here to discuss the 2024 growth goal the county's growth management system was instituted in 1979 following adoption of measure j to address the resource and public services impacts of population growth in Santa Cruz county as part of the growth management system each year the county is required to set an annual growth goal for the upcoming year that represents the year of the state's growth and the 2024 growth goal report is before you today for consideration so this report examines various factors actually one back used in establishing the year 2024 growth goal for the unincorporated area including analysis of population growth trends resource constraints the status of this year's market rate residential building permit allocations the county's housing needs including progress towards meeting the county's required regional housing needs allocation or RENA a review of demolition permits and density bonus projects approved in the past year as well as the ADU annual report this year's report also includes a discussion of the current pipeline of subsidized affordable housing projects and the continued impacts of recent state law on the county's growth management system in response to the comments from the planning commission additional language was also provided in the report on the current highway 1 expansion and its progress that's added to the urban services section on page 19 so population growth rates in recent years the county's population has been fairly stagnant and even negative based on the department of finance estimates population growth for the county overall in 2022 experienced a negative growth rate of negative 1.1% and that's negative 1.3% in the unincorporated area the state of California contracted at a rate of negative 0.4% in 2022 which is actually up from the previous year's negative 0.5% and it's important to note when you're looking at these numbers that housing unit construction plays a really big part in how the DOF population estimates are created so the DOF also reported that recent unprecedented decline in the population of California slowed last year due to three main factors stable births, fewer deaths and a rebound in foreign immigration that nearly returned to pre-pandemic levels but overall population growth is still negative due to the decline of net domestic migration which they say is likely the result of work from home changes since the mid 20th century population has steadily grown in the state of California and in the county as a whole while population in the unincorporated area has had a slightly different trajectory. The unincorporated area's population grew rapidly in the 1960s and 70s surpassing growth rates in the state and county as a whole but growth rates started to decline in the following decades and population actually decreased in our area between 2000 and the 2010 census years despite recent declines and the year-to-year population estimates reported by the DOF the 2020 census data actually showed that overall the county's population in the unincorporated area is actually on the rise with an average 0.2% growth over the last decade a total increase of about 2400 people since 2010. The measure, the growth goal report also summarizes the current status of the 2024 residential building permit allocations. This year 24 allocations have been granted as July 1st and if that demand trajectory continues 48 allocations will be granted by the end of the year. This is slightly lower than last year when 26 building permit allocations had been granted by July 1st but demand for allocations remains low compared to previous decades and staff anticipates there will be more than enough permits available for the remainder of this year which is nearly the end. Although allocations remain low this year a number of major residential projects are currently in construction which currently in development are reflected in table 10 of the report which shows that 108 housing units were issued building permits as of July 1st that includes 38 affordable units and 51 accessory dwelling units and these just wanted to note that these types of units affordable and accessory dwelling units are not subject to the growth management system. In order to support the county's affordable housing goals the county continues to exempt affordable housing to obtain permit allocations. And in accordance with the housing crisis act of 2019 the county will continue to not enforce the measure J growth goal limit on residential allocations within affected county areas while the statute is in place which was extended to 2030 with the passage of SB 8. So in Santa Cruz county the affected areas include the following census designated places shown in blue on this map that's Live Oak, Paso Tiempo Paradise Park and Amesti but I do want to note that all other aspects of measure J related to limiting building permits in the population including the county's affordable housing requirements are not at all impacted by this bill. So staff will continue to track the measure J allocations and subsequent building permit issuance in the affected areas solely for the purposes of reporting and continuing reporting this type of data in this report. So let's see in addition all residential units impacted by the CZU August Lightning complex will continue to be exempt so that the measure J allocation system is not a burden to those residents. Based on analysis detailed in the report for you today staff recommends that the growth goal be set at 0.5% for calendar year 2024. In past years the county's growth goal has generally been consistent with the state of California's growth rate however for many of those years actual development fell well below the established growth goal and with many housing initiatives as well as the state housing initiatives as well as the regional housing needs allocation which is three and a half times larger than the old one and code improvements that are coming our way with the sustainability update that will soon be implemented there's a greater potential for housing development in the county in the coming year and moreover census data indicates that the populations county is actually on the rise and and back and back projections show that this slight increase will probably continue so there's also as I mentioned earlier there's a number of housing projects currently in the permitting pipeline and we've seen slight elevation and permit activity in recent years so it all points to the potential increased demand for market rate permits that may continue through next year and beyond it's also important to note I did already note that there's a lot of state housing and ADU laws that are aimed at streamlining housing permits and increasing infill development such as SB 9 and in light of all of this we're recommending the 0.5% growth rate we feel it's inappropriate to set it at that rate for 2024 I did want to mention also that there was a comment or a concern from the planning commission regarding the RENA and I wanted to note that the regional housing allocation only it applies to both market rate and affordable units while the growth goal is strictly only limits the development of market rate units and if we looked at just this year alone the allocation is 465 units which is about 30% of the total number of units above mod units required in the RENA year span of the next RENA cycle so we think this is a realistic target let's see this growth rate would result in an allocation of 257 market residential permits available for 2024 allocations will be distributed between the urban and rural areas between 75 and 25% to recognize greater potential for infill development in urban areas and the growth goal also recommends carrying over unused market rate allocations from 2023 to 2024 so this results in that 465 market rate residential building permit allocations for 2024 and staff has found that establishment of the growth goal is exempt under CEQA and I noticed that the exemption has been prepared and included in your packet as Mark mentioned this was reviewed by the planning commission at a public hearing on October 25th and recommended for approval staff therefore recommends that the Board of Supervisors conduct the public hearing to consider the report on the year 2024 growth goal adopt the attached resolution establishing a year 2024 growth goal of 0.5% for the unincorporated portion of the county and authorize the filing of the CEQA notice of exemption with the clerk of the board so that concludes the presentation and we're happy to answer any questions thank you questions from Supervisors Supervisor Koenig thank you chair you addressed my question is how do we square the growth goal with the arena numbers and as you pointed out the majority of arena numbers are for actually affordable units so I think I caught your math there which as you said that the 465 units is actually 36% 30% okay but do we need well 6 or 465 it's about double average over the 8 years so we need to we have about 1550 units over the 8 years that we should build so that's only 193 194 units so the growth goal effectively will not limit our ability to meet our renewables the 8 years correct great thanks Supervisor Koenig thanks for that presentation two questions it seems like this just focuses on market rate is there any kind of provision that the county that also sets similar goals for affordable housing growth and that's the housing that we need for our workers and our community members so measure J included our inclusionary housing policy which sets that 15% requirement that you're aware of but the growth goal used to apply to affordable units but they found that I think back in 2009 the mid 2000s they decided to limit it just to market rate and they removed 80 years they removed affordable housing because they didn't want this to be an impediment developing those types of units so currently no those are not part of that that's the growth goal so it sounds like there may be an opportunity if we wanted to explore implementing growth goals for affordable housing that's something the board could consider potentially yeah it was done in the past in previous years okay that's really helpful and then I guess in terms this is a capacity issue because I know earlier this year we have a lot of folks coming in planning and needing permits and trouble getting permits and so I'm just wondering how you know the ability to permit aligns with these growth goals like do we have the capacity to keep up with the permits that are coming in in order to meet these goals so that we're not falling behind I'm just giving a lot of you know the public feedback that we've heard about people's challenges with getting building permits are you talking about like ensuring that that the growth goals not a burden on people developing and processing their building permits or I guess it's it's really it's you know I want to better understand like if we have a number that's set for like okay these are the number of units we want to build is that the capacity within the county to kind of meet the you know to be able to meet those goals right so part of part of what the growth management system establishes is not only like setting this maximum but also developing policies that can encourage us to reach the growth goal as well and that's definitely within the purview of the board and we can you know come back with proposals if the board so directs but currently if I could chime in just a tiny bit to Supervisor Cummins question I think you're talking about even our staffing levels to manage the permits coming through the front door to meet the growth goal and to meet the arena goal and all the goals that we've established I would say it'll continue to be a struggle if you look at our numbers today like our permit reviews are overdue we're in the mid 60 percent range of overdue and so it is a struggle we've been trying to balance with keeping positions filled you know we have a fair amount of turnover from retirements and difficulty recruiting new staff and so we're trying to balance an aggressive recruitment strategy and an aggressive third party use for plan check services and a balance between those two we do have a goal this year for the next two years an objective that the board have adopted to get down to I think is 25 percent overdue which is probably accurate because some applications are going to be overdue because of the quality control they have we're not at that goal yet we're striving for it but I think it's going to be a struggle so you point out something really important and I would say it will be difficult but we're going to keep working at it well thanks for that and whatever we can do to help support you all and your efforts to you know staff up I mean I think that we all want to try to make us as efficient as possible so thank you thank you those are all my questions yeah one more question that occurred to me you know so the reading number is kind of funny right because while it only requires us to do a certain number of market rate units the fact the matter is that the affordable units either have to be subsidized or we need to build roughly five times as much market rate housing in order to build one affordable unit so that the market rate housing can subsidize it so actually come to think of it this growth goal could very much come into conflict with our ability to build the affordable units required for us under the rena number I mean and at that point I mean let's say a project is proposed that has where we're starting to would put us over the cap with the growth goal but would add a certain whatever 50 affordable units therefore you know contributing towards the rena number that we need and are still short we come into conflict with state law at that point and have to approve the project despite the fact that it put us over the growth goal well there's we can always come back to the board if we see that we're meeting that that growth goal that's set we can always come back and because well you know especially if it's an affordable housing project we'll definitely be aware of it coming through the pipeline before it gets to the building permit stage so we can always return to the board and request that we increase that growth goal to set it to an appropriate if something a precedent comes if there's a large number of projects that come forward that would that the growth goal might limit or prevent some sort of project from being issued a permit okay I mean it's an order to build 3,000 affordable units out of 15% including area rate that's actually like 20,000 market rate units right the main part of the reason why the rena numbers are very much aspirational thank you I will just point out that a lot of our affordable units are 100% projects just like the new capital project capital have any project it's 100% 57% you know 100% and that actually we're seeing a lot of affordable 100% affordable that are subsidized by tax credits and other federal state programs be built because frankly the market projects are having trouble now throughout the county other than city of Santa Cruz penciling I've talked to people who own property in Watsonville just for example they can't make they have projects entitled and they cannot build them they're just not penciling out market rate but yet there's affordable projects there's 3 affordable right now being built in Watsonville 100% and that's great as long as the project based vouchers keep flowing but it could run out yeah I too was concerned about the growth goal compared to rena numbers I'm just just generally concerned that you know what formula is used if it's going to enhance the ability of the state to come in and tell us what we have to do really so an overhanging cloud I think in all of this and big concern of mine but you won't have to worry about that for after one more year quitter I would now like to open up the public hearing this is a public hearing is there any member of the community that would like to address us in chambers during this public hearing is there anybody online madam clerk I see no speakers chair okay we will close the public hearing and bring it back to the board for action Supervisor Koenig we have a motion from Supervisor Koenig a second from Supervisor Cummings we've got a roll call please Supervisor Koenig Cummings McPherson okay that passes unanimously thank you both for your work and for their presentation move on to item 10 which is to consider a status report on the federal emergency management agency or FEMA public assistance for the county disaster response and recovery direct staff to return on number 4 of February 13th 2024 with debt financing options for unreimbursed unfunded disaster recovery efforts and take voted actions the CAO and I believe we have a presentation from the CAO Mr. Palacios thank you very much chair members of the board Carlos Palacios County Administrative Officer more than three decades ago I started my career in local government and I remember at that time hearing about what we used to call global warming for the first time and we weren't sure what it really meant and what impacts it would have and I do remember then in 2006 Al Gore came out with his documentary an inconvenient truth which really spelled out at that time 2006 two decades ago the cause of global climate change and what many of the impacts we're going to be on the world we live in well we are seeing the impacts of climate change in Santa Cruz County not only in the frequency and severity of storm and fire events that we are facing but also on the impact on the county budget Santa Cruz County is particularly vulnerable among counties in our state largely because of our geographic setting large portions of our county are in the mountain areas or on the coastal zone that leads us to an environment that's particularly vulnerable to the climate change we are seeing in addition the county as we have told you before is historically been underfunded mainly due to the way property tax is distributed in the state of California beginning in 1978 after proposition 13 because of all these factors the county budget is now under great stress due to the repeated severe federal disaster events that we have been faced with we have been faced with seven federally declared disasters in the last six years which is we're used to it now but it's shocking when you think about it to have seven federally declared disaster events in the last six years in our county alone the biggest issue for us is the way that FEMA is structured and how they reimburse us for these events it is taking on average three to five to six years to get reimbursed their model is broken because they're being faced nationwide with so many different events and because of the slope the pace at which we are being reimbursed we are facing a very severe budget problem that is mainly due to cash flow the good news is that we will be reimbursed the problem is that we are spending money at such a pace that we are putting pressure on our cash flow and our ability to respond to these emergencies so we are going to be as you'll see in this presentation be forced to issue debt to finance our cash flow until we are able to get reimbursed by FEMA so that is what I am here to talk to you about and as you can see we are going to review some of the disasters that the nation and our state is being faced with talk about the financial situation of the storm response we've had and then what we are going to do in the near and long term to respond to this since in 2023 there were 25 federally declared disasters and again this is where we've become a numb to this but it's shocking when you think about it there we are California flooding in January through March that was our 2023 flooding but you'll also see the Maui fires that took place this year which again is unprecedented and then all the other severe weather events from storm damages to hurricanes that have come across the country and this is part of the story is that FEMA is under tremendous pressure both from a staffing point of view and from a financial point of view they are being faced with all of these disasters this is just 2023 mind you just one year 25 federally declared disasters to respond to from a staffing perspective and then try and reimburse local governments in a system that really was built on a disaster happening to a local community once every decade not seven in six years and so that's really the fundamental change that we need to have happen at the federal level this is another chart that shows you the frequency of the disasters that our nation has been facing you can see there anywhere on average let's say six events federal disasters all through the 80s even up to the early 2000s you can see 1992 which is when I first heard about global climate change there was like six or so and then you see 2006 when Al Gore was talking about it there was like seven or eight and then you can see in the last decade really from 2014 15 we just have more and more federally disasters declared up to last year which we have 25 compare that to 1980 where we had three federal disasters declared and you can see that most of them are in storm events and in fire events this is in the state of California the number of disasters we are being faced since 1980 and you can see that we had as few as one going into the 80s and then now you can see in the last decade we've had multiple events and again mainly storm disasters and fire disasters which is what we have been faced with as a county so in Santa Cruz County we have had seven federally declared disasters in last six years 2017 there were three federal disasters 2020 the lightning complex fire which was the most severe fire event we've had in our history 2023 was another very severe winter storm two disasters and then of course we had that the COVID-19 thrown in there which was also very difficult on all county governments because we were the first responders on the ground as county governments and again I wanted to mention that we as a county are in some ways the canary and the coal mine because we are so vulnerable to given our geographic setting so this is just a few pictures you know this but I think the public knows this as well this is just 2017 there were three federal disasters this is just examples of what happens to our roads as they are faced with this amount of water in such a short time period you can see the 237 damage sites in 2017 and you can just see them all over the county 2017 we've had 120 projects completed but you can see that there are still sites that we haven't even gotten to yet in 2017 and at this point I'll also point out that I'm very proud of the response of our public works department and the other departments that have been involved in these responses because it's truly amazing the work that we have done we have done really really really good work in responding but you can see that this scale is becoming overwhelming to us as county staff and of course 2019 we had the pandemic when we had to really mobilize our whole county government to deal with that 2020 the lightning complex fire the most severe fire in county history and then 2023 which was another very severe winter storm event and you can see the events that most impacted us as you see the red lines coming in there to the central coast you see there's December 31st January 5th and then of course the March 10th March 10th being when the power river flooded all three of those events were at we had many more atmospheric rivers but all of those cause severe flooding you can see in this map that we had more than 100% of our annual rainfall that year and again 2023 was in some ways without precedent but it happened in 2017 as well 215 project sites damaged sites again all over the county particularly our coastal areas and our mountain communities have been affected the scope again we become numb to this but it's truly shocking the number of the damage that was done to our county doing these during the 2017 2023 and 2020 fires this is the projects that have been completed roughly 86 projects and again very proud of our public works department and all the crews that have done an engineering staff that have done tremendous work trying to respond to this and another thing to keep in mind is that not only of course OR 3 has been very involved in this as well planning staff has been very well involved in it we are not having to do this in a vacuum we have our normal work we're doing right so this is on top of all the normal work that staff are being asked to do they're asked to be responded so here's the the financial data and the data again very large numbers you can see the 2017 storms COVID-19 2020 wildfire 2023 storms as well $250 million approximately that we are eligible for claims either FEMA or federal highways and by the way that's not the total cost we actually spend much more than $250 million on these disasters these are just the costs that are eligible for federal state reimbursement and then you can still see that we have $159 million outstanding and that number is putting a lot of pressure on the county budget and is really pushing our county to its limit on the cash flow that we are able to continue to maintain to respond to these emergencies we're really at our limit about our ability to continue to float these responses awaiting reimbursement from the federal agencies you can still see that we have $20 million from 2017 that is still not being reimbursed six years ago we're still waiting $48 million almost $49 million from 2020 when the COVID three years ago and then of course we still have the new disaster so that's really the issue that's before us as a county is that we're having to really reorder our total budget priorities and we're going to have to issue debt to maintain our ability to keep to basically fund this cash flow awaiting the response from Pima and other federal agencies to get reimbursed this is an example of the cost of the storms versus our general fund taxes general fund taxes are the amount of money that's more discretionary in the county although it's all committed to very very important things and you can see that the storms responses in 2020 2021 and 2023 are getting to the point where they're almost equal to our entire entire general taxes we're getting in so now it's responding on these responses almost entire amount of taxes general fund taxes we're getting in and again the good news is we're going to get reimbursed and that's really good news but the problem is the timing and so what we need from you is a few things one is that we're going to be coming back to you to ask for you to authorize us to issue debt to basically keep our cash flow in a healthy position so that we can await getting these reimbursements second I'm going to ask that we impose on chair friend if possible we've already imposed upon him quite a bit to help us with this and he's built a number of relationships with FEMA nationally with NACO nationally in helping us to get this fundamental changes that are needed at the federal level because this is really the federal government and local rooms being faced with circumstances which we have not faced from before this is unprecedented the amount of money we're having to spend on the disaster responses and FEMA is not ready for it so chair friend has been building relationships and has facilitated meetings in Washington and locally with FEMA and I'd ask that if you're amenable to it that you continue to help us since you have built those relationships we have to continue to work with the federal agencies and with our elected representatives to bring about getting reimbursed on these costs and then ultimately this is going to affect all local governments that we need fundamental change in the way that the FEMA's organized they just have to be much quicker in reimbursing or they have to be able to front money up front you can imagine right now facing a billion dollars I mean that little the county government city government they can do that and we're to the point where we can do that in other counties in California are being faced by the same thing so that's what our request is from you today and we will return to you we hope in early February with a plan on the debt issuance it's going to be very complicated because some of this debt is going to have to come back within a year because some of the we're getting reimbursed you know anywhere from one year to six sevens right so it's going to have to be different time periods as well that concludes my presentation thank you very much thank you Mr. Palazzo so the questions from board members supervisor McPherson yeah just a terrible circumstance in the uncertainty of it all too I thank you for that comprehensive report and this is the biggest challenges we faced financial challenges since I've been on the board for the last 11 years and I as you have mentioned that then we our public works department can't be it can't be stressed and then our health and human services too with COVID and all just how much extra effort and committed effort that they have put in over the years it's really be really appreciated and we really need the support of state and federal agencies and we understand that situation as you pointed out on your national map these disasters are going on everywhere we just had with that tornado in Tennessee there's there's another one on the list it just keeps on going but we can't afford to absorb those costs that we're getting here or borrow in a way that could affect our credit rating we will consent to continue conversations with federal and state agencies to see the best that we can view realize that they're they're stressed as well it's and it's really very concerning to whether we just have read about the recent state budget crisis that they're about ready to face too so it's it's not made easier in any any way and I think that we do have a reserve we do have to say we've got to be have that ready to go to for the immediate needs to when the next disaster hit and I don't mean to be negative on that but it's just lucky we didn't get the last Oregon Washington storm that we had so thank you for this oversight very depressing in some respects but realistic and so we have to do the best we can and I think our county staff has done that so thank you Supervisor Cummings I just want to thank Tia Palacios for bringing this not only to our attention but to the attention of our communities they can really understand how we've been getting impacted by storms and the disasters that we've faced over the past few years it's it's just crazy to think that when I started studying biology back in 2001 everybody was saying in 20 years if we don't do something about this here's what's going to happen and now it's actually happening and so I think it's really important that we're following the science and listening to it because everything's playing out as was predicted I and I agree that you know I don't think FEMA was ever set up to help address the magnitude and frequency of disasters that we're seeing at this point in time and so really being able to figure out how we can get the federal government to seriously take the fact that we need to change the system so that we're able to actually continue to operate as local government because otherwise I mean if we get hit with another bout of disasters this winter it's going to be really unclear how we're going to be able to continue to move forward so I appreciate the request for the to go out and bond and I hope we can continue to educate the community on why this is necessary and then I would just ask for one change to the language which will be the direct supervisor friend to work with the staff because since we're going to have a change in the chair next year likely I just want to make sure that he can continue to work in that role as he works with staff opposed to the language change supervisor thank you chair thank you to our CAO and staff for this sobering report and we've really especially we've done everything possible to keep our roads passable and just completed an incredible number of projects in this past year but what we're seeing is that without changes at the state and federal level particularly federal and the way FEMA's funded it's just not sustainable I just had a couple questions I mean the map you showed of the 25 federally declared disasters across the country is important context we know what the total number of claims is across all those disasters and then how much FEMA is actually being funded per year I'm just what is the shortfall there in terms of how much FEMA is being funded and then is there an average wait time right now six years ten years before folks or communities are seeing reimbursement for these disasters I don't have I don't know if staff has a they read up if you have a national figure in terms of total I know that the 25 federal disasters are over a billion each but let me see if you have it so we we're working closely with FEMA to get to the the heart of your question I think they're recognizing both post COVID that they need to hire more people so that they can process claims quicker so we know that that's coming on the COVID lens and then we're working very closely with our state and federal partners to try and move our stuff through more quickly as well but from a national standpoint I don't have those statistics unless Marcus does no I'm sorry I don't have that data nationally about the FEMA's funding status and where they're at or not it's a great question what I can speak to is our claims experience you know Mr. Palacios put up the slide and you can see over the last seven years we've had the various experiences with FEMA over seven disasters and the staff are great it's the process that's holding it back and in those seven disasters in seven years we've seen about 35 20 to 35 percent reimbursement on our COVID or CZU claims and those are getting close to four years old we've had better success with the 2017 some of that is our funded through a different federal program that's largely the success of FEMA I think we should expect five, seven maybe nine years unless we keep up our advocacy efforts and that's been instrumental the last 12 plus months we've seen a lot more activity than we saw previously so unfortunately goes to that we've got to find the time and space and keep advocating for ourselves right and to that point the memo suggested there's some hope that we could be reimbursed for with a larger portion of the COVID expenses soon what's the grounds for that are we seeing other communities getting those reimbursements we've just gotten some positive feedback from FEMA we're spending three hours with them Monday 9 a.m. December 18th so they've committed largely and thanks to chair friends advocacy and our federal representatives FEMA staff are coming here and we're prioritizing our COVID claims we've got about 50 million, 48 million in change they're still outstanding, they're stuck and so our efforts are aimed for that three plus hours is to get through every one of those claims I didn't find the ones that are no-brainers we should move forward we have high confidence that a lot of them are ready to go so we budgeted 14.4 million that we received this year we're at 200,000 so we have a long ways to go to get to that 14 million mark but we certainly aim to get higher than that so I was able to get some data from Jason Hoppin so orders of magnitude the annual appropriations for FEMA is in the order of magnitude of 10 to 20 billion a year over the last number of years we've seen 50, 60, 70 billion dollars worth of damages not nationwide so that's where we get each year the continuing funding resolutions have to make up and fix that but FEMA is economically underfunded at their annual allocation level and then they have to pivot and adjust got it well thank you for that data and thank you for the continued advocacy with FEMA including your meeting next weekend that really underlines the other point that was made which is this not only is it an incredible strain on our cash flow it's an incredible strain on county time to address these disasters not only while they're happening but in the follow-up on FEMA reimbursement thank you I think one of the things is also I think it's imperative that we do some sort of press release on media on this matter too specifically on the increase in the disasters and FEMA reimbursements we're facing some of us saw the newspapers over here and online news providers earlier but they're gone now but I think it's critical that we share this information because you know they need to hear it as well that's it thank you I'll make a couple comments also on that I think that they very well may be covering this remotely as we speak but I think that there is something effective on the 18th that will probably help provide some greater clarity on what we can do there's been a lot of there's sort of three things here one of them is that what used to be bipartisan from a funding perspective is no longer there was never historically emergency aid was never questioned in Congress and now it is and so you just that's a tough challenge number two the CRs and the continuing resolutions that Mr. Reed was talking about they generally follow a disaster with an assumption that it's funding that disaster it's actually funding disasters from 3, 4, 5, 6 years previous to that which most folks don't realize the third thing is that the federal government question longitudinally whether they should even fund these things because of the magnitude and scope of them this is what we're dealing with even with steel over rise guidance and coastal commission and what is the role of where development is allowed what is the role moving forward I mean these are more policy focused questions but I think that as future boards are going to realize these questions and mandates are going to come into conflict with economic or fiscal realities that the county has that are not going to bode well for the county I mean there isn't there shall be no winners in this situation the question is how to mitigate the loss and what we're trying to do here through our advocacy and the folks that are coming on Monday are not I mean these are decision we'll just say that they're decision making level folks at FEMA that can actually make these decisions is just get us out of the ones that have already happened so we can be a baseline for the future ones that are going to happen and it's not it's a very sobering reality but and it shouldn't be whether a community has better advocacy than another one right I mean these things should just be what they are but here we are in our community and I think that at least effective Monday we'll have a better sense of what needs to be issued from a debt perspective effective February and we'll see where we move forward it's a complicated issue is there any member of the community that would like to address this on the side of it in chambers seeing none is there anybody online seeing no speakers chair okay we'll bring it back to the board I think it's an exception file one sec yeah there's a couple of actions including language change for my colleagues if I'll move it to supervisor coming if you want to articulate a motion I'll move the staff recommendations with the change rather than directing the chair of the board will be directing supervisor friend as appropriate in the staff recommendation second all right we have a motion from supervisor coming to supervisor Hernandez we could have a roll call please supervisor conic comings hi McPherson and friend I appreciate everybody that's here to address that issue move on to the final item of today's agenda which is to I'm 11 consider directing the county administrative officer to return on a before February 27 2024 to provide a report the reviews of Santa Cruz County code chapter 2.31 public works projects declaration of non-responsibility has been operationalized as outline memo supervisors conic and thank you chair well to decipher that title a little bit when we go out to award a project whether it's a road project or a renovation of a building or construction of a new building the county is required to choose the lowest and responsible better and the impetus for this item was learning that there are indeed cases where some of the folks that we have hired to do the public's work are engaged in wage theft through work of misclassification failure to comply with overtime requirements under reporting workers on on certified payrolls I mean not to mention making it really difficult to employ the number of interns and other folks that are training for these lines of work that they should be on these projects so the question is what are we actually doing to determine that people are responsible when we award these contracts and is there any review that's actually happening and for example one of the largest road contracts that we recently awarded for Soquel Drive we awarded to Monterey Peninsula Engineering and this contractor has decades of recorded violations that have cost them over $500,000 at what point do we deem someone irresponsible and that we shouldn't actually award that contract to them furthermore with another contract that's currently being carried out with the Live Oak Library Annex there was a work stoppage there because the contractor did not pay their subcontractor on time and now that project is getting close to six months and maybe it's nine months overdue so I think that this deserves a review of how we define the contractors that submit bids to actually be responsible before we make those bids and then the other piece of this is to look at opportunities to implement project labor agreements because this is a tool that has been used to really avoid precisely these kinds of situations we of course our county has used product labor agreements in the past with great success notably on some larger projects like the Sheriff's Center and attached to this item today is a letter from Sheriff Jim Hart talking about how the product labor agreement was put in place for that actually really helped to deliver a successful project that was on time and on budget and then there are many communities across California that have gone a step further and implemented master project labor agreements for that cover all projects that the county or jurisdiction is pursuing. Watsonville has a master project labor agreement Alameda County does Santa Barbara County recently implemented one Santa Clara County so clearly this is a tool that can be successful what I'm suggesting here what supervisor Hernandez and I are suggesting is to look at some of the projects that are coming up in the next one to three years for our county and determine ones that could be good candidates for project labor agreements I know that there's at least a couple within the first district that could be good candidates including the Children's Crisis Stabilization Center which is a significant renovation project in order to outfit that building for its new use as well as the SoCal San Jose road repairs and resurfacing and I do think it's important to look at some projects that you know the item calls for projects down to a million dollars we know that project labor agreements can be successful on larger projects but many of what other communities are considering actually go down to the million dollar range so I think that we need to look at some horizontal road projects that are also in the you know million dollar plus amount in order to see whether or not these agreements can be successful in these cases as well. Supervisor Hernandez there's an opportunity to do a PLA in Watsonville and I think that it was important because an industry that's really known for uncertainties project labor agreements really stand as a beacon for stability by bringing all stakeholders together under one agreement they foster collaboration and prevent disruptions and ensure projects are built on time on budget with a scaled workforce and they're not just a tool for efficiency but they're an investment in a brighter future and workforce for construction and I think that you know with the opportunity having to see a PLA before and after and actually on the same road on Freedom Boulevard I got to see the differences when we started one of the projects at the beginning of Freedom Boulevard it went from Stanford to Martin Alley we saw many delays stoppages and even lawsuits from the business owners for those delays and after the PLA the continued projects on Freedom it was a Freedom Road Reconstruction Repavement that included sidewalks and utilities too it went flawless other than traffic right but that's always interesting people complain about the traffic but the fact that we got all the freedom repaved and we had even utility projects done all of those sewer lines and water lines were done from Clifford to Green Valley it was piecemeal that we did the three projects on Freedom the third one was from from the Green Valley one was from Freedom to Pennsylvania Loma Prieta but we had contractors were Granite Rock and some of the other ones that I forgot but it was completely night and day from the very first one we did on Freedom Boulevard that went from Stanford to Martin Alley that one was just horrible because we had such delays and stoppages and so it didn't go good for us so it was really night and day for us and I think that the adoption of a PLA will also bolster apprenticeship opportunities that are much needed here these apprenticeships can lead to more jobs in the trades maybe our public works and it will foster family supporting careers local apprenticeships are mandated by these agreements and a community hiring provision opens avenues for residents to enter apprenticeship programs you know overall I think the trades are important factor in our communities and so that's you know I am supportive of this I understand I'm supportive of the CA looking into this and getting back to us in February we have many jurisdictions that have project labor agreements and it seems to be interesting to learn more about them I look forward to it we'll open it up for the community I believe we do have somebody who's been patiently waiting here today so I appreciate you waiting no problem that's what we're here for first of all ladies gentlemen and supervisors I want to thank you for talking about this that's the first step is sitting down and having the conversations okay we talked today that I've been sitting here older people still working younger kids ain't got mental health it all ties into that PLA you give a kid a job you don't worry about that kid because he can support himself and he can get married and support a family if an older person now I am 56 years old and I'm already past my retirement date because I was in a union or I'm in a union I could retired last year comfortably that's what those things mean a PLA it hits your home it hits your community it hits your brother beside you and your lady friend on the other side it does all that and we talk about partnership that means kids from your schools your families getting an opportunity to make a living a living wage with benefits those are things that we need more than ever we talked about wage theft ivory towers in San Jose how many of those folks were locked in a container and forced to work you have an opportunity to lead your community into something that is so much more I thank you I thank you for what you're doing how you're doing it and I thank you for your time thank you sir anybody else in the community like to address this in chambers anybody online yes chair Albert your microphone is now available good evening world supervisors of Santa Cruz my name is Alberto Lucero with the northern california carpet union local 505 and I'm here today to fully support the PLA agreement for the Santa Cruz county because it's a crucial step forward a healthier and more connected community it also ensures that the projects are completing a timely matter and after standards or way above standards the PLA ensures that fair labor wages and allowing the construction workers to live where they work be able to spend time with their families and their loved ones it also provides healthcare for the construction work in this family preventive to become a burden to the system which happens when there's not a PLA local hire also eliminates the lengthy commutes enabling workers to invest more time in their families the community and get involved in the community additionally the apprenticeship programs creates more opportunities for at least youth minorities and women fostering a diverse and skilled careers in the construction industry a PLA also prevents wage theft and fraud which also happens more than often on projects that don't have a PLA also I want to ask the board of supervisors please look at the comments on her head's ordinance in the city of Berkeley in the Yolo county PLA those are good examples of good PLA this county should be adopting and I will endorse the PLA for a stronger work in Santa Cruz county thank you for your time and your support thank you anybody else online Jesus your microphones sound available good afternoon county of Santa Cruz board of supervisors my name is Jesus Vega and I have been a lifelong resident of Santa Cruz county I appreciate the opportunity to advocate for the project labor agreement this stands as a pillar for the welfare of the community the PLA is more than a contract it's a commitment that of the well-being of our construction workers and our families by providing essential health care coverage it champions all the wage ensuring those who build our community can afford to live in local hiring is not just a policy it's a solution to lengthy commutes which we all know highway 1 and fostering a sense of commuting additionally the PLA opens doors through apprenticeship programs for our youth minorities and women ensuring a diverse and skilled workforce let us combat wage theft and miscommunication creating a fair and just environment on our construction sites your support of the PLA is an investment in the prosperity and fairness of our community thank you you know further speakers chair alright thank you for everybody to comment I'll bring it back to the board I believe there's additional comments supervisors are coming first I want to thank supervisors Koneg and Hernandez for bringing this forward this is our attention I just wanted to ask staff on some of the comments that were brought up around some of these projects where there's contractors that have you know not met timelines and not been paying like what's the oversight of those types of contractors because I just you know I hear some of the concern that's being expressed and just want to understand what kind of oversight the county has director to make sure okay thank you okay thank you Matt Machado director CDI so the oversight you're asking for those contracts when things don't go right so we do we do have oversight of course we withhold retentions to make sure the contractor is doing right and in some cases I think supervisor Koneg mentioned it we'll get a stop notice from subcontractors when they're not being paid properly and then we can withhold retention until it's settled now sometimes it takes courts and actions like that that we don't get involved in but holding the purse strings does give us quite a bit of authority and responsibility to ensure that all the subs and all the workers are paid properly and we take that very seriously and I feel like we've had great success and on our projects doesn't say it doesn't mean that all the contractors are running smooth but from our perspective we enforce that everybody's paid properly into the job thank you I guess with that I want to support the recommendations that were brought forward so I'm happy to move the recommended action but I want to add some additional direction I've been in touch with some of the labor unions as well regarding this topic and there was an interest as was discussed that was brought up today to have a discussion and I think the best way that this could work for the county is if we're having our county staff talking with the unions to see what a PLA could look like for the county so the additional direction I'm going to add is to direct the CAO and county staff to enter into discussion with the trades to determine the feasibility of the county adopting a PLA for significant county projects and bring recommendations for the board to consider honor before the first meeting in April I'll second it if we can look at some of the best policies that were in the packet as well okay another thing is you know I just wanted to add I know everybody already said their piece but on any given day I think that about 40 to maybe about 70 or 80% of our large projects that we have are practically PLA projects already in our union jobs so it ain't like it's something new it's like something we've been doing already so I just wanted to add that thank you any additional discussion alright are there any questions on the clarification alright yes I did have some clarification on the motion are you is the maker the motion moving staff recommendation and then adding an additional direction to come back with something different and additional in April yes because what is recommended by Supervisors Koenig and Hernandez really focuses on and report the reviews of Santa Cruz County Code SEC 2.31 Public Works Projects Declaration on Responsibility has been operationalized cleaning out bidders are reviewed for responsibility and how this review process could be improved in the future to prevent untrustworthy contractors from being awarded work and then asks identify 10 planned county projects of a million or more upcoming over the next three years that could benefit from project labor agreements so it's really focused on the policy and the project and the additional direction I'm providing is that there's been discussion around having the county have its own PLA and my direction is having the county staff enter into discussion with the trades to start discussing how we can create a PLA that will be feasible for us to implement here in the county and the idea would be that it would come back in April and just giving folks time because we know we're entering the holidays we know these things take time and work county staffs going to need to investigate and look at other counties and what kind of best practices they've used and then they would bring back recommendations for us to consider in early April or on or before first meeting in April. Thank you that provides the clarity that I was looking for that the whole item isn't being moved to April but do you have any other questions I do I caught what I think may have been possible friendly amendment from Supervisor Hernandez regarding looking at best practices is that in there as well? I think what Supervisor Hernandez included was looking at other counties that have implemented PLAs for best practices at their PLA and we would like that reflected in the additional direction yes okay thank you okay we have a motion and a second if we can have a roll call please yes Supervisor Koenig thank you